WH pressconf:Of 2 sources of NK plutonium, Clinton shut off by far the more

[ProgressiveEconomist]

important one COMPLETELY, and also apparently slowed down substantially a minor, less observable, process for acquiring plutonium. But Dubya DID NOTHING when the North Koreans turned the MAJOR source of plutonium back on in 2002.

Why did this fact not get mentioned in more than a dozen questions and responses about NK nuclear proliferation today?

Who does research for the White House "press corpse"? I was dismayed when NBC's star national reporter David Gregory allowed Tony Snow to distort the record at today's press briefing without asking effective follow-ups. Gregory just let Snow distort, time after time. Snow made it appear that NK now has sufficient plutonium for bombs because Bill Clinton allowed NK to "cheat" substantially on an agreement negotiated for Clinton in 1994 by Jimmy Carter.

Snow said, "It became clear (in 2002) that there was uranium enrichment going on".

But apparently, Snow today ignored the major source of NK plutonium, reprocessed spent fuel rods that were locked away under Clinton. According to the May 2004 Washington Monthly article excertped below, there were TWO sources of NK plutonium, one minor (uranium enrichment), and one major (reprocessing spent fuel rods). Under Clinton, the major source was locked in an internationally-inspected storage facility. When in 2002, on Dubya's watch, the North Koreans kicked out the inspectors, broke open the storage facility, and started reprocessing the fuel rods into bomb-grade plutonium, Dubya's administration did NOTHING.

NK nuclear tests apparently have been just a matter of time since then. But no national WH media representative asked Snow about fuel-rod reprocessing today. Are the media THAT ill-informed?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0405.kaplan.html :

"Rolling Blunder: How the Bush administration let North Korea get nukes.

By Fred Kaplan; May 2004

On Oct. 4, 2002, officials from the U.S. State Department flew to Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, and confronted Kim Jong-il's foreign ministry with evidence that Kim had acquired centrifuges for processing highly enriched uranium, which could be used for building nuclear weapons. To the Americans' surprise, the North Koreans conceded. It was an unsettling revelation, coming just as the Bush administration was gearing up for a confrontation with Iraq. This new threat wasn't imminent; processing uranium is a tedious task; Kim Jong-il was almost certainly years away from grinding enough of the stuff to make an atomic bomb.

But the North Koreans had another route to nuclear weapons--a stash of radioactive fuel rods, taken a decade earlier from its nuclear power plant in Yongbyon. These rods could be processed into plutonium--and, from that, into A-bombs--not in years but in months. Thanks to an agreement brokered by the Clinton administration, the rods were locked in a storage facility under the monitoring of international weapons-inspectors. Common sense dictated that--whatever it did about the centrifuges--the Bush administration should do everything possible to keep the fuel rods locked up.

Unfortunately, common sense was in short supply. After a few shrill diplomatic exchanges over the uranium, Pyongyang upped the ante. The North Koreans expelled the international inspectors, broke the locks on the fuel rods, loaded them onto a truck, and drove them to a nearby reprocessing facility, to be converted into bomb-grade plutonium. The White House stood by and did nothing. Why did George W. Bush--his foreign policy avowedly devoted to stopping "rogue regimes" from acquiring weapons of mass destruction--allow one of the world's most dangerous regimes to acquire the makings of the deadliest WMDs? ... President Bush made the case for war in Iraq on the premise that Saddam Hussein might soon have nuclear weapons--which turned out not to be true. Kim Jong-il may have nuclear weapons now; he certainly has enough plutonium to build some, and the reactors to breed more. Yet Bush has neither threatened war nor pursued diplomacy. ...

The pattern of decision making that led to this debacle--as described to me in recent interviews with key former administration officials who participated in the events--will sound familiar to anyone who has watched Bush and his cabinet in action. It is a pattern of wishful thinking, blinding moral outrage, willful ignorance of foreign cultures, a naive faith in American triumphalism, a contempt for the messy compromises of diplomacy, and a knee-jerk refusal to do anything the way the Clinton administration did it...."

[RevolutionStartsNow]

1. Thank you. The last line in that Kaplan article is beautifully written:

"It is a pattern of wishful thinking, blinding moral outrage, willful ignorance of foreign cultures, a naive faith in American triumphalism, a contempt for the messy compromises of diplomacy, and a knee-jerk refusal to do anything the way the Clinton administration did it..."

Sums it right up.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

2. Yes--Dubya seems too stupid even to know what he DOESN'T know,

and then to get good advice from those who do know.

On pre-9/11 counterterrorism, he apparently rejected Richard Clarke's plan because "he was tired of swatting flies" -- he wanted a plan to ELIMINATE AQ, not prevent as many AQ attacks as possible.

He fired the best FEMA director ever because he was a Clinton appointee from Arkansas, and replaced him with a horse show judge.

And it wasn't just Bill Clinton's policies he wanted to depart from. He ended the Powell Doctrine of overwhelming force for any US military operation, and he tried to do what Daddy Bush wisely would not--enter into an unwinnable ground operation in Iraq.

[RevolutionStartsNow]

3. And here's a whopper for you:

I just had a RW friend of mine tell me that he believes that "History will treat Bush well for what he did in Iraq."

After I stopped laughing, I replied that history will treat Bush exactly as he deserves to be treated, and that I can't wait for that day.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

4. Timeline of Bush Misadministration inaction, from Australian journalists

Notice how the October 2003 entry says the North Koreans confirmed that their bomb plutonium came from the fuel rods Tony Snow did not mention today, the ones David Gregory did not ask about.

From http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=150800 :

"North Korea nuclear crisis timeline

Monday Oct 9 13:43 AEST

Oct. 2002: Top State Department envoy James Kelly confronts Pyongyang with evidence Washington says points to a covert uranium-enrichment programme. North Korea says "it is entitled to possess not only nuclear weapons but other types of weapons more powerful than them in defence of its sovereignty in face of the U.S. threat".

Dec. 2002: North Korea says it plans to restart Yongbyon reactor, disables International Atomic Enegy Agency (IAEA) surveillance devices at Yongbyon and expels IAEA inspectors.

Jan. 2003: North Korea says it is quitting the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty with immediate effect. l At talks between U.S. team led by Kelly and North Koreans and China in Beijing, American officials say North Korea told the United States that it has nuclear weapons and might test them or transfer them to other countries.

Aug. 2003: First round of six-way talks between North and South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the U.S. on the nuclear issue takes place in Beijing. North Korea threatens to test nuclear bomb and test-fire new missile.

Oct. 2003: North Korea says it has enhanced its "nuclear deterrent" with plutonium reprocessed from thousands of nuclear fuel rods. Pyongyang says it is willing to display the deterrent.

..."

[Gabi Hayes]

5. KR for those who still think David Gregory is a journalist, or anybody

else (Helen Thomas excepted) in the WH Prese CorpsE.

what a joke

get this on the greatest page, for Christs' sake!

[Supersedeas]

6. it's a cocktail party priority with those people

[ProgressiveEconomist]

7. Tony Snow DID use the cryptic phrase "unlocked Yongbian" once

today, referring to the more significant source of NK plutonium. His use of this phrase proves that Snow knew about the two sources of NK plutonium, and that Snow's distortions apparently were deliberate. But Gregory did not follow up or even seem to know what Snow was talking about. Gregory allowed Snow to imply that unobservable "enriching uranium" was the source of the bomb material exploded this weekend, not the fully observable (before late 2002) thousands of easily reprocessed spent fuel rods that were locked away under IAEA seals until about two years into Dubya's watch.

The transcript of the press briefing now is up, at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061010-5.html :

"October 10, 2006; Press Briefing by Tony Snow; 11:50 A.M. EDT

Q Tony, in 2003, the President said very clearly that we will not tolerate North Korea with nuclear weapons.

MR. SNOW: Right.

Q And here we are in 2006 operating on the assumption, as the government is, that, in fact, they tested a nuclear devise. So what went wrong?

MR. SNOW: I'm not sure anything went wrong. The failed diplomacy is on the part of the North Koreans because what they have done so far is turn down a series of diplomatic initiatives that would have given them everything they have said they wanted ... And yet they've walked away from all of it. So if there's a failure in diplomacy, it's on their part.

But what also has happened, David, is that over that period of time you have seen the six-party talks continue to evolve ... So rather than having something going wrong, what you really have is the emergence of a process ...

Q In 2002, though, and since then, this President likes to focus on results. So here's the result: In 2002, the President said that he didn't want the so-called "axis of evil", the worst regimes in the world, to get the most dangerous weapons, WMDs. And here we are in 2006; this President has invaded a country that had no nuclear weapons, and there is a country that in that process has been able to acquire more nuclear weapons.

MR. SNOW: Well, it's an open question about what the status -- as you know, there was speculation even back in the Clinton years, did they have six, did they have eight nukes, and the intelligence on that, I think, has always been a little varied. The fact is that the North Koreans --

Q You dispute the idea that they have more today than they had when you came into office?

MR. SNOW: I don't know, I honestly don't know. And I think intelligence analysts will tell you that they're teasing through the question, as well. You'll have to ask a technical question of whether they've had the capability to build additional weapons since they unlocked Yongbian a couple years ago. Don't know. But I think the most significant -- so let's set a couple of benchmarks. Number one, going back to the 1990s, it was clear that the North Koreans were attempting to try to put together a nuclear program. That was why you had the agreed framework back in 1994 under the Clinton administration. The idea was, you provide the carrots, maybe they'll back off. It was -- it made a lot of sense, but it didn't work because the North Koreans cheated on it and were trying on the sly to enrich uranium.

So it is not -- so what has happened in recent days, at least in terms of an announced or desire by the North Koreans to develop a nuclear weapon, that's not new. They've been trying to do this for years. What is new is that you do have, I think, a much more effective mechanism, or at least a more promising mechanism for dealing with them, because the people who have direct leverage, the people who can turn the spigots economically and politically, are now fully engaged and invested in this. That was not the case in the 1990s; it was not the case earlier in this decade; it is the case now.

Q But, Tony, results -- I'm trying to get you to focus on results. You invaded a country that had no nuclear weapons and all the while a country further developed their nuclear capacity.

MR. SNOW: You may have better intelligence than I do. You're --

Q It's not a question of me. I think the intelligence is not as unclear as you're projecting it as.

MR. SNOW: No, I think it is. People have been trying to assess. ... The North Koreans have proceeded. Absolutely right; given. But now what has happened is that the people, again, who are most directly capable of influencing their decisions have stepped up and said, you know what, the old policy of appeasing these guys apparently isn't going to work anymore. So you have to look prospectively now, and say, okay, what is going to be happening in the future that we think is going to enable us to modify the behavior of the North Koreans?

Q Just one more, I just want to be clear. You're suggesting the Clinton approach was appeasement?

MR. SNOW: No, what I'm saying is that in the past what has happened is the attempt to say to the North Koreans -- because I think the Clinton administration, again, tried something and it was worth trying, which is to say, okay, we're going to give you a bunch of carrots: You guys renounce; we're going to try to give you a light-water breeder reactor, we'll give you incentives. And the North Koreans took it and ran away with it. What has also happened is that in response to bad behavior in the past, people have said, you know, what we'll do is we'll increase aid, we'll increase trade.

So rather than using the term "appeasement," what I will say is that you had primarily a carrots-oriented approach. Now you've got carrots and sticks. ...

Q And your belief is that the march to war against Iraq in no way limited this administration's ability to dissuade North Korea from developing nuclear weapons?

MR. SNOW: Absolutely right, absolutely right, absolutely right. The two are, in fact, separate issues that are worked on by separate people. ..."

[ProgressiveEconomist]

8. Instead of "2 kinds of plutonium", I should have said, "2 kinds of

"bomb-fuel", or "2 kinds of fissile material". While most modern nuclear fission weapons use plutonium, the most common kind of fissile material for atomic bombs, cruder weapons can be made just by painstakingly separating isotopes of natural uranium to produce enriched uranium-235, the other kind of fissile material.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-235 :

"The Little Boy atomic bomb was fueled by enriched uranium. Most modern nuclear arsenals use plutonium as the fissile component, however U-235 devices remain a nuclear proliferation concern due to the simplicity of the design."

[Gwerlain]

9. Yeah, I was gonna correct you

on that one.

It's worth noting that only about 1/7 of uranium is U-235; the other 6/7 is U-238, which cannot fission easily enough to support a chain reaction and explode. Separating these two is a major chore, because they are chemically identical, and their only difference is that one weighs a bit less than 1/80th more than the other. And to make a bomb from them, you must separate them and use only the U-235.

However, U-238, if it is hit by a neutron when it's in the middle of a reactor, turns to U-239, which decays quite quickly into neptunium with the same weight, Np-239, which also decays quite quickly into plutonium of the same weight, Pu-239, and Pu-239 is also fissile. This is how you make a "breeder reactor-" the neutrons from the U-235 fission in the reactor convert the U-238 into Pu-239. So those fuel rods were full of U-238 which had been bombarded and just needed to be reprocessed to get the plutonium out. Now, since plutonium is a different chemical element than uranium, there is no need for long and costly isotope separation; you just use chemical methods, which are much quicker and much less expensive, and there you have it.

So that's why the plutonium-containing fuel rods were by FAR the greatest hazard; the hazard posed by the uranium enrichment was much less of a problem, just as it is much less of a problem in Iran.

And by preying on the public's lack of knowledge of how this stuff works, they have yet again managed to blame the Clenis for all their problems, at least among those who don't know better.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

10. Welcome to DU! From this thread, you've learned that it's not

possible to edit a lead-in to a thread once a certain amount of time has passed. I'd change "plutonium" to "fissile material" if I could.