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Category: Proliferation

June 18, 2009

Why Do Journalists Still Quote Selig Harrison?

The Joongang Ilbo summarizes the history of North Korea’s denials, and America’s accusations, that it had a highly enriched uranium program. Although David Albright and Selig Harrison were understandably not available for comment, I’ll extend a hand of generosity — just because the North Koreans are admitting it again today doesn’t mean they won’t be back to denying it tomorrow.  Maybe in between all those interviews he’s giving to some of America’s most gullible reporters, Harrison will find time to...

Categories Media Criticism/Proliferation/WMD
June 16, 2009

Some Good Reads

Both appear in the Wall Street Journal, and both are too good to just graf and go.  Read them both in their entirety. Nicholas Eberstadt:  A New Plan for Pyongyang Paul Wolfowitz:  Resettle the North Korean Refugees Plus this from Melanie Kirkpatrick:  “I pray Ms. Lee and Ms. Ling will come home soon. But if the Americans’ ordeal raises international awareness of the horrors of North Korea’s gulag, it will not have been in vain.”

Categories Diplomacy/Human Rights/Refugees/Uncategorized/Washington Views/WMD
June 16, 2009

Selig Harrison: Obama Shouldn’t Say Mean Things to North Korea

Sometimes, a news organization’s selection of guests tells you almost everything you need to know about its biases.  In one corner, we have Balbina Hwang, formerly of the Heritage Foundation before she sold out and went to work for Christopher “Kim Jong” Hill.  In the other, Selig Harrison presents that valuable “from beneath contempt” perspective.  This interview is a little old — from just after the toothless U.N. presidential statement that served as North Korea’s perfectly suitable excuse to walk...

Categories Appeasement/WMD
June 16, 2009

Latest “New Ledger” Piece

Although the piece nods toward recent events, such as President Lee’s visit to Washington, its central theme is really the inescapable relevance of human rights and North Korea’s disinterest in the kind of coexistence that too many diplomats, academics, and grad students long for in much the same way that Borat longed for Pamela Anderson.  Also, I am not responsible for selecting the photo of that priceless pose by Mrs. Clinton, or for her choice of a pantsuit color.

Categories Blogs & Blogging/Human Rights/WMD
June 15, 2009

North Korea May Have More Nuke Test Sites

The ROK intelligence leak ticker reports: North Korea may have built more underground nuclear test sites in the northeastern district where it staged its first two tests, a news report has said. South Korean intelligence sources quoted by Yonhap news agency said the North could have built two or three such sites in and around Punggyeri in Kilju district near the coast. [AFP] I wonder how many concentration camp prisoners are entombed in those new sites.

Categories Human Rights/Proliferation/WMD
June 13, 2009

Impossible! They Don’t Have a Uranium Enrichment Program, No Matter What They Say!

North Korea vowed on Saturday to embark on a uranium enrichment program and “weaponize” all the plutonium in its possession as it rejected the new U.N. sanctions meant to punish the communist nation for its recent nuclear test. North Korea also said it would not abandon its nuclear programs, saying it was an inevitable decision to defend itself from what it says is a hostile U.S. policy and its nuclear threat against the North.  [AP, via WSJ] Selig Harrison and...

Categories Proliferation/WMD
June 12, 2009

Plan C: Disarm Kim Jong Il Just by Pissing Him Off!

U.S. intelligence officials have warned President Obama and other senior American officials that North Korea intends to respond to the looming passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution this week — condemning the communist country for its recent nuclear and ballistic missile tests — with another nuclear test, FOX  News has learned.  [Fox News] Could we be just six U.N. resolutions away from the complete nuclear disarmament of North Korea?  And you say the U.N. is worthless! If only it...

Categories Missiles/Proliferation/WMD
June 10, 2009

Sun Rises, Flowers Bloom, U.N. Fails to Pass Effective N. Korea Resolution

[Update:   I should clarify that this isn’t final and passed by the Security Council. This is leaked draft language from the agreed text.] My hopes that a long negotiation would mean tougher language were not realized.  China was more determined to shield North Korea from consequences than we were determined to impose them. Excerpts below the fold, with many thanks to a reader and friend. How is this weak?  In a nutshell, the language on sanctions and interdiction is...

Categories Missiles/Proliferation/Sanctions/WMD
June 9, 2009

North Korea’s Nuclear Tests and Camp 16

I had previously speculated that the proximity of Camp 16 to North Korea’s main nuclear test site was probably more than mere coincidence (you can see Google Earth images of both at this link; click the images).  The Chosun Ilbo has now published the first indirect evidence — really, a gathering of rumors — to support my speculation, despite the regime’s extraordinary secrecy: How were even the locals kept in the dark? The terrain around Mt. Mantap in Kilju, North...

Categories Human Rights/Refugees/The Camps/WMD
June 5, 2009

Obama Gears Up for “Plan B;” John Kerry Blocks Terror Re-Listing

I really don’t know what to make of this.  A young, inexperienced president, one whom the North Koreans arguably endorsed, comes into office showing every sign of being easier meat than Lance Bass in Riker’s Island.  The North Koreans, true to Joe Biden’s prophetic gaffe, and with their exquisite sensitivity to American weakness, don’t even let the man get inaugurated before they begin the noisy repudiation of every agreed framework, U.N. resolution, and armistice they can stuff into a shredder....

Categories "United" Nations/China/Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/NK Crime/NK Economics/Proliferation/Sanctions/U.S. Politics
June 5, 2009

Missile Test Update

North Korea’s launch pad on its west coast is ready for a first launch: Photographic images show the launch tower and what appears to be construction materials on the launch pad, Tim Brown, a senior fellow with GlobalSecurity.org, said Thursday. He speculated that the debris may be there to make the pad appear as though it is still under construction. “The launch pad appears to be operational,” Brown said.  [AP, Pamela Hess] Compare my photo from Google Earth to the...

Categories Missiles/NK Military
June 3, 2009

Axis, Schmaxis

The Wall Street Journal reports more evidence of cooperation between North Korea and Iran: In a 2008 paper published by the Korea Economic Institute, Dr. Christina Lin of Jane’s Information Group noted that “Increased visits to Iran by DPRK nuclear specialists in 2003 reportedly led to a DPRK-Iran agreement for the DPRK to either initiate or accelerate work with Iranians to develop nuclear warheads that could be fitted on the DPRK No-dong missiles that the DPRK and Iran were jointly...

Categories Axis of Evil/Iran/Proliferation/WMD
June 2, 2009

Source: Syria Hires N. Korea to Reverse Engineer, Manufacture Russian Missiles

A source who has proved reliable in the past e-mails me to pass along that the Syrian Scientific Study Research Center has made a deal with North Korea’s Korea Overseas Mining and Development, a/k/a KOMID. Both entities are notorious proliferators, and both CERS and KOMID have been sanctioned by the Treasury Department repeatedly. The missile we speak of is not a ballistic missile. Instead, it’s the 9M133 “Kornet” missile, an advanced antitank missile known to NATO as the AT-14 Spriggan....

Categories Proliferation/Russia
June 2, 2009

Korean War 2, Week 2 Begins!

SEC DEF GATES VISITS A MISSILE INTERCEPTOR SITE in Alaska: “If there were a launch from a rogue state such as North Korea, I have good confidence we would be able to deal with it,” Mr. Gates said. Despite its backing for the missile defense system, the Obama administration has proposed scaling back the number of interceptors to be placed in Alaska from 40 to 26, arguing the lower number would be sufficient to match near-term North Korean missile capabilities....

Categories NK Military/Proliferation/WMD
May 31, 2009

Korean War 2, Day 5: Gates Calls for a ‘Plan B,’ The Next Missile Test, and More Calls for Military Action

GATES LOOKS FOR A “PLAN B:” Mr. Gates raised “the notion that we should think about this as we are pursuing the six-party talks,” said a senior defense official who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the issue. “We ought to think about what more we need to do should they not prove successful.   [N.Y. Times, Elisabeth Bumiller] Better late than never, and he’s welcome to order from this menu. MISSILE TEST UPDATE: ...

Categories NK Economics/Proliferation/Sanctions/WMD
May 30, 2009

Korean War 2, Day 4: Gates Hints at Military Action if North Korea Proliferates Nuclear Material

Three days after North Korea repudiated the Armistice agreement it had never complied with anyway, and as North Korea was seen preparing for yet another long-range missile test, Defense Secretary Robert Gates used the occasion of a security conference in Singapore to issue a veiled threat to Kim Jong Il: “The transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to states or non-state entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States and our allies,” Gates told...

Categories Proliferation/U.S. Military/WMD