Stewart Stogel
Thursday, Oct. 17, 2002

In September 1994, Amb. Robert Gallucci (Asst. Sec. of State for North Korean Affairs) signed an accord with North Korean deputy foreign minister Kang Sok Ju in New York.

The accord, called the "Agreed Framework," "froze" the accelerating North Korean nuclear weapons program.

In return for the freeze and the dismantling of one active nuclear reactor and the dismantling of a second nearing completion, the U.S. promised Pyongyang two new state-of-the-art light-water reactors to be built in the northern seaport city of Simpo.

The light water reactors produce far less bomb-grade atomic material than the fast-breeder reactors the North Koreans were operating.

The reactors at Simpo are being built and mostly financed by South Korea (who is constructing them) and Japan. The U.S. is providing fuel oil until the reactors are completed.

Under terms of the agreement with the U.S., the International Atomic Energy Agency was to make a field inspection of the atomic research site (in the hamlet of Yongbyon about 60 mi north of the North Korean capital Pyongyang) in October 1994.

Details of that inspection were released in an IAEA report of November 1994. In that report, the IAEA raised serious questions about what was found (or not found) at the nuclear site. "Key parts of the new nuclear reactor were missing," claimed Demetrius Perricos, the lead IAEA inspector.

Perricos went on to claim that not only were key pieces missing, but based on previous official North Korean accounts, "most of the reactor" was missing.

Perricos, along with former IAEA Director-General Dr. Hans Blix, now head the U.N. effort to disarm Iraq from weapons similar to the ones North Korea has admitted hiding.

This marks the second time the IAEA got fooled; in 1990 by Iraq and now from 1994-2002 by North Korea. To Hans Blix's credit, he suspected something was up but never got any real support from the Clinton administration.

The reactor sited in the IAEA report could produce enough plutonium (the heart of a nuclear weapon) to make "3-4 bombs a year," so said the CIA in an earlier report to Congress.

The IAEA surmised that either previous claims by the DPRK were "inaccurate" or the new reactor had been mostly "disassembled" before the U.S. and North Korea reached their agreement.

The IAEA report was filed at the same time ambassador Gallucci sought congressional approval for the Clinton administration's agreement.

Gallucci claims he never received the IAEA report.

The IAEA says the report was sent to Joel Wit, a State Dept. official on the Korean desk (now retired).

When questioned, Wit "could not remember" why Gallucci never received the IAEA report.

Further research showed that secretary of defense William Perry received the report, who then not only elected to keep the report from the administration's official point man on North Korea, but from several key congressional committees as well.

Repeated claims by Rep. Benjamin Gilman, R-N.Y., a recent chairman of the House International Relations Committee, that North Korea "had been constantly cheating" on the U.S. accord, were denied by both Perry and Madeleine Albright.

Neither Perry nor Albright was available to respond to questions on North Korea's surprise admission that they indeed do have a secret atomic weapons program.

That revelation came from the White House on Wednesday night.

The Bush administration claims that the North Korean admission came during a visit by a State Department delegation to North Korea on October 4.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

North Korea

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