Siegfried Hecker of Stanford University, an American nuclear scientist wrote in a report published on Saturday that he observed hundreds of sophisticated centrifuges during a tour of a North Korea’s Yongbyon atomic complex.
“Instead of seeing a few small cascades of centrifuges, which I believed to exist in North Korea, we saw a modern, clean centrifuge plant of more than a thousand centrifuges, all neatly aligned and plumbed below us,” he said.
Hecker, who is also the co-director of the Centre for International Security and Co-operation, described the control room as “astonishingly modern”, writing that, unlike other North Korean facilities, it “would fit into any modern American processing facility”.
The New York Times earlier said that Hecker was told by North Korean officials they had 2,000 centrifuges operating. He told the newspaper that he had already privately informed the White House of his findings.
Hecker said he was forbidden from taking photographs and could not verify North Korean claims that the plant was already producing low-enriched uranium.
A US team that visited the country was also unable to verify North Korea’s claims.
The plant didn’t exist in 2009 and this may be in violation of United Nations mandates.
The speed with which it was built strongly suggests that the impoverished, isolated country, which tested its first nuclear device in 2006, had foreign help and evaded strict new United Nations Security Council sanctions imposed to punish its rejection of international controls.
If there is a bright side to the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan it may be that our military are stretched way to thin to attempt any regime change in Korea. The US has been loathe to attack nations with nuclear capability in the past which may, sadly, be an enticement for more nations to develop their own nuclear programs.
