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North Korean Nukes
Aired December 26, 2002 - 14:20 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: A new study says U.S. nuclear plants could survive a direct attack by a commercial jet piloted by a suicide hijacker. But critics say the study was skewed by the utility industry. According to "The Washington Post" a direct hit would cause a core meltdown. We're going to talk about that and North Korea stepping up plans to reactivate a nuclear facility of its own.
General Wesley Clark joins us from Little Rock, Arkansas to talk about both subject matters.
General good to see you.
GEN. WESLEY CLARK, (RET.) CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Nice to see you, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: This latest piece of news that we've been talking about out of the "Washington Post," what do you think? Could a direct hit cause a core meltdown?
CLARK: Well, I think that it's always -- it's difficult to predict exactly what could happen in a catastrophe like that, but even if the reactor dome, the containment vessel, is strong enough to withstand the hit, there may be other parts of the plant that are vulnerable. And so, you know, the best thing is we don't want to try. We want to prevent this from happening.
PHILLIPS: Well, let's go back in time, then, here. You were a part of the team at the Pentagon that helped draft this agreement in 1994...
CLARK: That's right.
PHILLIPS: ... with North Korea, to stop its nuclear weapons development. What happened to that agreement?
CLARK: Well, it was implemented. It called for the United States to provide fuel oil as an interim measure, while we were in the process of working with a couple of partners, Japan and South Korea, to put together two light water reactors to give North Korea a supply of energy.
But we then tried to use that agreement as a launching pad for further deepening the dialogue between north and south and with the United States. You may remember Secretary of State Albright made a visit to North Korea and so forth.
But in the meantime, what's happened is north has walked away from the agreement. They secretly began a process to extract enriched uranium from uranium ore, which would give them another path to creating nuclear weapons. They started that back in the late 1990s, either as a way of getting nuclear weapons or simply to create more bargaining leverage in case they should need it later.
And then, since the Bush administration has come to office, relations between the south and north and United States have become more tenuous, more difficult all the way around, and the sort of sunshine policy the South Korean president was trying to pursue, basically, fell on hard times.
Now it's clear the north does have this process under way to extract uranium, enriched uranium, from uranium ore, and it looks like they're moving to restart the Yongyong (ph) reactor, which would give them plutonium capacity. So they're definitely putting themselves back in a position of seeking nuclear capability.
PHILLIPS: General, critics are now saying the U.S. And Clinton administration, they were duped by the North Koreans. Do you agree with that, or do you think -- I mean, did the U.S. really have no idea that the reactors could be used for weapons, rather than electricity?
CLARK: Well, at the time, the United States believed that the North Koreans may well have extracted plutonium from the initial set of fuel rods that was in the reactor in the early 1990s.
And so, really, in the fall of '93 through the summer of '94, people in the administration were aware that we had to do something to prevent the ongoing North Korean nuclear program. There was a serious consideration of whether we should go to war with North Korea over this.
Eventually, president -- former President Carter went to North Korea, and just as we were moving and preparing to send a massive reinforcement flow to our forces in South Korea, preparatory to going to the United Nations to get a blockade or something against the north, we developed this track of going down negotiations, and we froze the North Korean nuclear program.
So we knew very well what was going on at the time, and in no sense was the administration duped. It was a way of forcing the Koreans to back down without publicly humiliating them, and that's what was done. But they subsequently walked away from the agreement, and it's been made even more complicated since 9/11 now.
PHILLIPS: Well, how big of a threat do you think North Korea is? Do you think they're bluffing in any way?
CLARK: Well, I don't think there's imminent risk of war on the Korean peninsula, even though the armies are there facing each other. They have an enormous military capacity. They are a proliferator. We just saw where they were shipping SCUDs to Yemen and we stopped the ship there. We know as they move to enhance their nuclear know-how and get nuclear capabilities, no doubt it will be available on the market for whoever wants to pay the price. In that sense, there's no bluff behind this. They are going read, moving toward developing this capability, which will be for sale and which will undercut our ability to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. They may at some point have contacts with Al Qaeda. We don't know that right now. At least I certainly don't know that, not being on the inside of the government today.
There's no question about it, this is a challenge to the nonproliferation goals of the United States government.
PHILLIPS: I've got to ask you, too, Iraq, North Korea, is there a relationship, a connection? Is Saddam Hussein watching what the U.S. is doing now with North Korea?
CLARK: I think there's no doubt about it. I think Saddam clearly sees the United States troubled by what's happening in the North Korea, and the North Koreans see the United States distracted by Iraq. So this is a very intricate crisis, as it's emerging.
The United States chose to see the Iraqi problem as part of the war on terror, because we were concerned, the administration was concerned that Saddam might give some capabilities to the terrorists.
On the other hand, there's no doubt that North Korea has advanced nuclear capabilities. They probably already have a couple of weapons, and so they also are a threat.
PHILLIPS: General, I want to get your reaction quickly an article by William Safire in "The New York Times" today. I just want to get your reaction to this. It says "If our strategic goal is to stop North Korea from becoming the Asian arsenal of terror, here what is we should do: First, begin withdrawing our troops from South Korea." What do you think?
CLARK: I don't think that's the appropriate step at the outset of this. What we really need to do is get the dialogue re-established with the new government, President No (ph) in South Korea. His predecessor was pursuing a sunshine policy with the north. The United States basically threw cold water on that some 18, 20 months ago. It made it much more difficult for him. We need a dialogue first. We've got plenty of capability. Obviously, if the north ever did anything and used its weapons, it would be -- we could certainly handle that.
But we don't want to have war. We don't want confrontation first. We should put diplomacy out front, and that means engaging with the south and through interlocutors like Japan, or China and Russia, encouraging the north to walk away from its programs so we can resume a dialogue with the north.
PHILLIPS: CNN military analyst General Wesley Clark, thank you, sir.
CLARK: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired December 26, 2002 - 14:20 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: A new study says U.S. nuclear plants could survive a direct attack by a commercial jet piloted by a suicide hijacker. But critics say the study was skewed by the utility industry. According to "The Washington Post" a direct hit would cause a core meltdown. We're going to talk about that and North Korea stepping up plans to reactivate a nuclear facility of its own.
General Wesley Clark joins us from Little Rock, Arkansas to talk about both subject matters.
General good to see you.
GEN. WESLEY CLARK, (RET.) CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Nice to see you, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: This latest piece of news that we've been talking about out of the "Washington Post," what do you think? Could a direct hit cause a core meltdown?
CLARK: Well, I think that it's always -- it's difficult to predict exactly what could happen in a catastrophe like that, but even if the reactor dome, the containment vessel, is strong enough to withstand the hit, there may be other parts of the plant that are vulnerable. And so, you know, the best thing is we don't want to try. We want to prevent this from happening.
PHILLIPS: Well, let's go back in time, then, here. You were a part of the team at the Pentagon that helped draft this agreement in 1994...
CLARK: That's right.
PHILLIPS: ... with North Korea, to stop its nuclear weapons development. What happened to that agreement?
CLARK: Well, it was implemented. It called for the United States to provide fuel oil as an interim measure, while we were in the process of working with a couple of partners, Japan and South Korea, to put together two light water reactors to give North Korea a supply of energy.
But we then tried to use that agreement as a launching pad for further deepening the dialogue between north and south and with the United States. You may remember Secretary of State Albright made a visit to North Korea and so forth.
But in the meantime, what's happened is north has walked away from the agreement. They secretly began a process to extract enriched uranium from uranium ore, which would give them another path to creating nuclear weapons. They started that back in the late 1990s, either as a way of getting nuclear weapons or simply to create more bargaining leverage in case they should need it later.
And then, since the Bush administration has come to office, relations between the south and north and United States have become more tenuous, more difficult all the way around, and the sort of sunshine policy the South Korean president was trying to pursue, basically, fell on hard times.
Now it's clear the north does have this process under way to extract uranium, enriched uranium, from uranium ore, and it looks like they're moving to restart the Yongyong (ph) reactor, which would give them plutonium capacity. So they're definitely putting themselves back in a position of seeking nuclear capability.
PHILLIPS: General, critics are now saying the U.S. And Clinton administration, they were duped by the North Koreans. Do you agree with that, or do you think -- I mean, did the U.S. really have no idea that the reactors could be used for weapons, rather than electricity?
CLARK: Well, at the time, the United States believed that the North Koreans may well have extracted plutonium from the initial set of fuel rods that was in the reactor in the early 1990s.
And so, really, in the fall of '93 through the summer of '94, people in the administration were aware that we had to do something to prevent the ongoing North Korean nuclear program. There was a serious consideration of whether we should go to war with North Korea over this.
Eventually, president -- former President Carter went to North Korea, and just as we were moving and preparing to send a massive reinforcement flow to our forces in South Korea, preparatory to going to the United Nations to get a blockade or something against the north, we developed this track of going down negotiations, and we froze the North Korean nuclear program.
So we knew very well what was going on at the time, and in no sense was the administration duped. It was a way of forcing the Koreans to back down without publicly humiliating them, and that's what was done. But they subsequently walked away from the agreement, and it's been made even more complicated since 9/11 now.
PHILLIPS: Well, how big of a threat do you think North Korea is? Do you think they're bluffing in any way?
CLARK: Well, I don't think there's imminent risk of war on the Korean peninsula, even though the armies are there facing each other. They have an enormous military capacity. They are a proliferator. We just saw where they were shipping SCUDs to Yemen and we stopped the ship there. We know as they move to enhance their nuclear know-how and get nuclear capabilities, no doubt it will be available on the market for whoever wants to pay the price. In that sense, there's no bluff behind this. They are going read, moving toward developing this capability, which will be for sale and which will undercut our ability to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. They may at some point have contacts with Al Qaeda. We don't know that right now. At least I certainly don't know that, not being on the inside of the government today.
There's no question about it, this is a challenge to the nonproliferation goals of the United States government.
PHILLIPS: I've got to ask you, too, Iraq, North Korea, is there a relationship, a connection? Is Saddam Hussein watching what the U.S. is doing now with North Korea?
CLARK: I think there's no doubt about it. I think Saddam clearly sees the United States troubled by what's happening in the North Korea, and the North Koreans see the United States distracted by Iraq. So this is a very intricate crisis, as it's emerging.
The United States chose to see the Iraqi problem as part of the war on terror, because we were concerned, the administration was concerned that Saddam might give some capabilities to the terrorists.
On the other hand, there's no doubt that North Korea has advanced nuclear capabilities. They probably already have a couple of weapons, and so they also are a threat.
PHILLIPS: General, I want to get your reaction quickly an article by William Safire in "The New York Times" today. I just want to get your reaction to this. It says "If our strategic goal is to stop North Korea from becoming the Asian arsenal of terror, here what is we should do: First, begin withdrawing our troops from South Korea." What do you think?
CLARK: I don't think that's the appropriate step at the outset of this. What we really need to do is get the dialogue re-established with the new government, President No (ph) in South Korea. His predecessor was pursuing a sunshine policy with the north. The United States basically threw cold water on that some 18, 20 months ago. It made it much more difficult for him. We need a dialogue first. We've got plenty of capability. Obviously, if the north ever did anything and used its weapons, it would be -- we could certainly handle that.
But we don't want to have war. We don't want confrontation first. We should put diplomacy out front, and that means engaging with the south and through interlocutors like Japan, or China and Russia, encouraging the north to walk away from its programs so we can resume a dialogue with the north.
PHILLIPS: CNN military analyst General Wesley Clark, thank you, sir.
CLARK: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
