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Korea
CIA: N. Korea Doesn’t Need Nuclear Tests
2003-11-09
The CIA has concluded that North Korea has been able to validate its nuclear weapons designs without a nuclear test, the agency disclosed to Congress. The intelligence service believes that conventional explosives tests, conducted since the 1980s, have allowed the North Koreans to verify their nuclear designs would work. The agency believes North Korea has one or two nuclear weapons similar to what the United States dropped on Hiroshima during World War II; a minority of U.S. analysts believe the communist country may already have made more.
Is this a quality assessment or is the CIA in la-la land again?
CIA officials do not describe the precise mechanism by which the North Koreans could have verified their designs. The explanation to Congress provides the rationale behind the agency’s conclusion that North Korea already has a nuclear weapon. The relatively simple fission weapons that North Korea is believed to have produced would presumably detonate a precisely built shell of acorns conventional high explosives around a plutonium core, and the tests may have involved the designs of that shell. A CIA spokesman declined last week to expand on the agency’s conclusions.
"I can say no more!"
North Korea has suggested it may conduct a nuclear test to demonstrate it is a nuclear power. But U.S. officials are not sure that the North Koreans would expend a nuclear weapon if they have only a few.
Better to keep everyone guessing.
``A North Korean decision to conduct a nuclear test would entail risks for Pyongyang of precipitating an international backlash and further isolation,’’ the CIA says. ``Pyongyang at this point appears to view ambiguity regarding its nuclear capabilities as providing a tactical advantage.’’ The CIA’s conclusion was reported in an unclassified letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee in August. That letter, along with similar communications from the Defense Intelligence Agency, the FBI and State Department, was obtained by the Federation of American Scientists, a watchdog group that focuses on security and intelligence matters. U.S. intelligence officials have acknowledged uncertainties about North Korea’s weapons programs. The Defense Intelligence Agency, in its letter to the Senate committee, said a once-feared North Korean missile, the Taepo Dong 1, now appears to be only a research and development platform that is not intended for operational use. North Korea remains ready, however, to test the Taepo Dong 2 - a newer, long-range missile that may be capable of reaching the United States, the DIA says.
Looks like the TD1 worked, then.
The defense agency vaguely suggests that such a test could take place either from North Korean soil or ``perhaps in another country’’ that the agency did not name, although Pakistan, Iran and North Korea are known to have cooperated on missile projects in the past. In their political analyses, the American intelligence agencies said the government of Kim Jong Il appears unlikely to crumble from within, although they differed on who would succeed Kim if he died. ``We lack reliable insights into the internal dynamics of his regime, however successor(s) to Kim would most likely come from the military,’’ the DIA said.
"We don’t have a clue, but military’s as good a guess as any."
Posted by:Steve White

#5  maybe they work... maybe they don't... they aren't much value for detterence/extortion if you don't pop one off every once and a while though.
Posted by: ----------<<<<--   2003-11-9 10:10:01 PM  

#4  software verification works only if you've proven your technology in the first place - i.e.: am actual test. They don't know if the tech they got from China or Pakland was accurate (IMHO) unless they 'splode one in the first place. I agree that the ambiguity is a lot more useful for extortion than a botched test. The CIA has good reason to err on the conservative (worst case) side since they've been caught so often on the short end of the intel stick
Posted by: Frank G   2003-11-9 11:32:49 AM  

#3  The CIA assessments are starting to remind me of Pinkerton assesments during the civil war.

Bobby Lee was notorius for 50,000 Virtual Rebs in reserve.
Posted by: Shipman   2003-11-9 9:24:54 AM  

#2  Past CIA blunders aside, there may be a kernel of truth here. One of the things stolen from the national labs by the Chinese was a sophisticated modeling database for nuclear weapon's design. Basically, the software allows you to "test" a weapon without actually making a hole in the ground.

Of course, this would mean our good buddies in Beijing either sprung a leak or gave the software to North Korea.
Posted by: Douglas De Bono   2003-11-9 8:24:16 AM  

#1  Russian strength during cold war, Iraqi strength..etc. The CIA assessments are starting to remind me of Pinkerton assesments during the civil war.
Posted by: B   2003-11-9 6:44:19 AM  

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