Email this page to friends About the Author Peter Brookes writes a weekly column on foreign policy and defense for the New York Post and is penning a book on national security affairs for McGraw Hill due out early next fall. He appears regularly on national TV and radio. Prior to joining the Heritage Foundation, Brookes served in the Bush administration as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (DASD) for Asian and Pacific Affairs in the Office of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, where he was responsible for the development, planning, guidance and oversight of U .S. security and defense policy for 38 countries and 5 bilateral defense alliances in the Asia-Pacific region. Brookes has a distinguished military background, including active duty in support of military operations in Iraq/Kuwait (Desert Storm); Haiti (Restore Democracy); and Bosnia (Joint Endeavor). He flew reconnaissance missions in East Asia and the Persian Gulf while stationed in Japan covering military matters related to the Soviet Union, North Korea, China, Vietnam, Iran and Iraq. His personal awards and decorations include: the Joint Service Commendation Medal; the Navy Commendation Medal (3 awards); the Navy Achievement Medal; several naval and joint unit awards; the Defense Language Institute’s Kellogg Award; the Joint Chiefs of Staff service badge; and Naval Aviation Observer (NAO) wings. Sound Off! - Have an opinion about this article? Visit the discussion forum. View the Brookes Archives Related Links Military Opinions Index Get Breaking Military News Alerts Get $1004 a Month! Your service may have earned you great education benefits. Get up to $1004 per month to pay for your undergraduate, graduate or technical degree. Find out about military-friendly schools today.

February 4, 2005

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For the second time in three years, the North Koreans have been caught with their hand in the nuclear cookie jar.

U.S. officials long feared that Pyongyang has at least two nuclear weapons and enough fissile material for perhaps eight more. Now we know it's worse - North Korea isn't just developing nuclear weapons at home, it's proliferating nuclear materials abroad.

In late 2002, Washington discovered that North Korea had been cheating - for at least four years - on its 1994 agreement to freeze its nuclear-weapons program.

Now the latest U.S. intelligence (gleaned from Libya's dismantled nuke program) suggests that Pyongyang sold Tripoli two tons of the uranium hexafluoride gas used in the production of weapons-grade highly enriched uranium.

But we've snapped up all of Libya's processed uranium - so why is this significant?

Well, first, it confirms longstanding suspicions that North Korea has two active nuclear-weapons programs: The original, Soviet-era plutonium-based program that was supposedly capped by the 1994 agreement - and this parallel, uranium-based program, too.

Second, it shows that Pyongyang has already crossed a nuclear Rubicon: It's selling nuclear weapons materials (and, perhaps, technology) abroad. That proven willingness to proliferate is a standing threat to international peace and security.

Third, the rogue regime can probably pump out nuclear material faster than we'd previously believed. Pyongyang, highly paranoid, isn't likely to be selling this stuff abroad at the risk of undermining its own stockpile at home.

The $64,000 question is: Who else has bought North Korean nuclear materials and/or technology? So far, there's no evidence of anyone besides Libya. But the prime suspects are Iran and Syria - both bad boys already have strong ballistic-missile-trading relationships with Pyongyang.

The nightmare scenario, of course, features an impoverished North Korea selling nuclear materials to a terrorist group. That remains unlikely - even for Pyongyang. (That nuke-toting terrorists could come back to bite you.)

The problem is: You just don't know what you don't know, especially when it comes to proliferation. So what to do in the short run?

IAEA: Scientific sleuthing at Tennessee's Oak Ridge National Laboratory concluded (with 90 percent certainty) that Libyan uranium samples didn't come from rogue Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan's network. By process of elimination, that left North Korea as the likely culprit.

Understandably, some people remain skeptical about the nuclear finger-pointing. (And it's peculiar that Libya hasn't just told us where and how it got the goods...)

OK, fine. Although at this point it's a bit fuzzy on what testing the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency has done, answer the skeptics by giving a sample of the Libyan uranium and our data to them for an independent analysis.

If the IAEA reaches the same conclusion as Oak Ridge, Washington should find it a bit easier to strengthen the flabby resolve of the international community to deal with the North Korean proliferation threat.

Six-Party Talks: There are few good military options for dealing with the North's nuclear program (which is scattered in underground sites across the country). That leaves diplomacy.

Since August 2003, North Korea has attended three rounds of nuclear discussions, involving the U.S., China, Japan, Russia and South Korea. (It passed on a fourth round last fall in hopes of a President Kerry.) Restarting these talks remains the best option for resolving the Korean nuclear issue.

China: Beijing has more influence here than anyone else. In fact, Mao Tse Tung once quipped that North Korea and China are "as close as lips and teeth." But Beijing's efforts to "pressure" Pyongyang into behaving responsibly have been a lot like Chinese opera - lots of noise and arm-waving, with nothing really going on. If China's as committed to nuclear nonproliferation as it claims, it should lean harder on its old ally. Now.

In a nutshell, the news from Libya is that the problem of North Korean nuclear proliferation is even worse than we'd thought. Unfortunately, few outside North Korea know just how much worse it really is.

Peter Brookes is a Heritage Foundation senior fellow.
E-mail: peterbrookes@heritage.org

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© 2005 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. Mr. Brookes is a Senior Fellow for National Security Affairs at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC. This column originally appeared in the New York Post. All opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of Military.com.