Subject: EEE会議（北朝鮮の「核保有宣言」の信憑性）
Date: Fri, 2 May 2003 08:07:08 +0900
From: "kkaneko" <kkaneko@eagle.ocn.ne.jp>

各位殿

先般の北京での米朝中３者協議で北朝鮮は「核保有宣言」をした、また8,000本の使
用済み核燃料棒の再処理を「完了」し、兵器級プルトニウムを大量に入手したことを
明らかにした、とされますが、果たして本当に北が核兵器（または核爆発装置）を完
成させたのか、もしすでに完成した核兵器（核爆発装置）を保有しているとすれば、
それは１９９３年時点で製造されたものなのか（この場合は精々１，２発程度）、そ
れとも8,000本の再処理で得たプルトニウムまたは別途入手した高濃縮ウランを使っ
て最近製造したものなのか（この場合は４〜６発かそれ以上？）。仮に8,000本の再
処理が完了したとして、米国の偵察衛星がそれを何故探知できなかったのか、寧辺以
外に秘密の核施設が存在するのではないか。要するにこれは、またしても米国から何
らかの譲歩を引き出そうとする北の常套手段（ブラッフ）ではないのか、等々の疑問
があります。これらの疑問について、ワシントンでは目下CIAやペンタゴンが大掛か
りな再点検を行っているようです。詳細は次のNew York Timesの著名記者による分析
記事（５月１日点け）でどうぞ。
金子熊夫

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North Korea Prompts U.S. to Investigate Nuclear Boast
By DAVID E. SANGER with HOWARD W. FRENCH


ASHINGTON, April 30 ? White House officials have ordered the nation's
intelligence agencies to conduct a review of whether North Korea could
produce bomb-grade plutonium ? as it says it has done ? without detection by
the United States, according to senior administration officials.

The order to the Central Intelligence Agency and other agencies that have
long monitored North Korea's nuclear program was prompted by the blunt and
direct nature of the North's declaration last week, during negotiations in
Beijing, that it was already a nuclear power. It said it had completed
reprocessing of 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods that could provide enough
plutonium for four to six additional weapons.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell described the North Korean assertion in
testimony today to a Senate subcommittee, saying, "The North Koreans, in
very typical bellicose fashion, accused us of everything imaginable and then
said, `We reprocessed all the fuel rods that were in storage.' "

So far the United States has not been able to verify North Korea's claim to
have produced weapons-grade plutonium.

"We can't establish that as a matter of fact with our intelligence
community, but they said they did it," Mr. Powell said.

Until last week, North Korea had never boasted about its nuclear weapons
capability, insisting it was only interested in producing electric power
from nuclear reactors. The change in tactics, the administration's Korea
experts believe, may be an effort to raise the price of dismantling its
program, if President Bush reversed himself and was willing to strike a deal
to disarm the country.

"We think they are bluffing," a senior administration official said. "But we
felt the necessity to go back and review every possibility, in the off
chance that we missed something."

The C.I.A. has long believed that North Korea may have two nuclear weapons
developed in the late 1980's or early 1990's, before a 1994 nuclear freeze
accord was signed with President Bill Clinton. But the agency is worried
about reprocessing, because North Korea could sell plutonium on the open
market ? a threat Mr. Powell said today that the North Koreans made explicit
last week, saying their decision "depends on the American reaction."

The chemical process of reprocessing spent fuel into plutonium lets off a
distinct signature ? a form of krypton ? that can be detected by sensors
used by American intelligence agencies for decades, back to the days of the
cold war. So far there has been no evidence of that gas, officials say, or
other evidence that reprocessing has begun.

But some senior administration officials have long been concerned that the
intelligence agencies have missed either a hidden reprocessing plant or one
that operates at such a low level that it would not emit a detectable
signature.

"I've never been satisfied that we knew everything we should about the
nature of their program," one senior administration official said.

Others noted that the White House and the intelligence agencies jointly
concluded that all past suspicions of North Korean nuclear activity ?
including unconfirmed reports that the North imported plutonium from Russia
or a former Soviet republic in the 1990's ? should now be revisited.

Five years ago the C.I.A. thought it had identified a huge underground plant
that could be used for reprocessing. When American officials finally gained
access, however, the cave turned out to be empty.

For several years the C.I.A. also suspected, but could not prove, that North
Korea had a clandestine program to build a bomb using another process,
involving highly enriched uranium. That process does not give off a
distinctive signature. The evidence did not come until a year ago, however,
and when the North was confronted with it in October, the current crisis
began. North Korean officials did not refer to that program directly in the
Beijing talks.

The findings of the new intelligence review could affect a behind-the-scenes
debate now underway within the administration over whether to continue
talking to the North Korean government, or to move sometime in the next few
weeks or months toward a kind of economic embargo not seen since the Cuban
missile crisis.

North Korea has warned that economic penalties would be regarded as an act
of war, and so far South Korea and China have argued that they would be a
mistake, at a moment when North Korea appears willing to at least discuss
giving up its nuclear ambitions.

But inside the administration, a growing number of senior officials believe
that the North Koreans miscalculated when they declared in Beijing last week
that they are already a nuclear power. The declaration, they argue, pushed
China more toward the American position that the North Korean government of
Kim Jong Il must not be allowed to possess nuclear weapons.

"We're in no hurry" to decide on sanctions, said one senior administration
official, noting that South Korea's new president, Roh Moo Hyun, and Japan's
prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, will both be in Washington in coming
weeks.

In comments in Seoul today, Mr. Roh was openly skeptical of the North Korean
claims, telling his staff that North Korea's admission that it possesses
nuclear weapons amounted to "game tactics in North Korea-U.S. negotiations."

The Roh administration, which took office in February, has tried to
establish its bona fides with Washington after a difficult start to the
relationship, as it was sometimes viewed as cool toward the United States.