One, North Korea is trying to get nuclear weapons and though their nuclear and missile (to carry nukes) tests last summer fizzled, they clearly show that North Korea has been pursuing nuclear weapons for quite some time. The exact state of North Korea's program is unimportant as long as you understand the broad picture that North Korea wants nukes.
And two, our backtracking should not obscure the fact that North Korea admitted to the Uranium enrichment program back in 2002:
The United States has long known Pyongyang was pursuing a plutonium-based nuclear program at its Yongbyon complex.
But in October 2002, it accused the North of pursuing a second covert program to produce highly enriched uranium, another source of fuel for nuclear weapons.
The North initially acknowledged the program but has since denied it.
The CIA reported in 2002 that North Korea began buying large amounts of centrifuge-related equipment in 2001 and was building a plant that could make enough weapons-grade uranium for two or more nuclear weapons a year, perhaps by 2005.
The allegations caused a 1994 U.S.-North Korea nuclear agreement to unravel.
So amid all the accusations that we oversold what North Korea had, remember that North Korea admitted to what we accused them of having. Why we are so willing to believe the North Koreans now, I do not know.
I would also like to clarify that our allegations didn't cause the agreement to unravel. North Korean violation of that agreement unraveled it long before our accusations. And long before we were aware of it.
Also consider that the CIA is a little more cautious after their last slam dunk assessment of Iraq; which followed their missing the Iraqi nuclear program; missing Libya's nuclear program; and missing the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests. (Hmm, perhaps we should just use a Magic 8 Ball or something instead. Be a lot cheaper.)
Further, consider that we were pretty sure dirt-poor North Korea had bought all the needed components:
Michael Green, a former National Security Council senior Asia expert, said that in 2002 "there was an intelligence community consensus that (the North) had been procuring virtually all of the components of the HEU facility design" through Pakistani A.Q. Khan and that stands.
Why acquire them to sit in warehouses?
Green does state something that worries me a great deal:
He and other experts said the recent U.S. acknowledgments will give North Korea latitude to offer different explanations for buying enrichment technology, such that it was a "rogue" operation.
I worry that pressure for an agreement--any agreement--will lead us to believe any explanation that North Korea offers and pretend we have solved the nuclear problem.
I want North Korea squeezed until they collapse. But our fight against jihadis makes North Korea a secondary front. If we can neutralize the North Korean nuclear threat (both direct and through proliferation), I could stomach some deal that puts off the day of collapse. So I don't want to be unwilling to take yes for an answer. But we must be hard negotiators to make sure we can clearly verify what North Korea must do, and be willing to halt aid if the agreement is violated.
An in a perfect world, we aid North Korea only enough to slow their rate of collapse.
But much negotiation is necessary to really establish what North Korea is agreeing to do, and only then can the agreement be judged.
