South Korea let off for nuclear deceptions

[bemildred]

Source: Asia Times

WASHINGTON - In 2004, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) revealed that a member state had violated its Safeguards Agreement by carrying out covert uranium conversion and enrichment activities and plutonium experiments for more than two decades. The nature of some of those enrichment activities, moreover, raised legitimate suspicions of interest in a nuclear weapons program.

The state was found to have lied to the IAEA even when the authority began investigating these suspicious activities, with the country concerned claiming that its laser enrichment research did not involve any use of nuclear material.

If that sounds like a description of Iran's troubled relationship with the IAEA up to 2004, that's because it bears striking resemblance to it. In fact, it is a description of the deception of the IAEA by the government of South Korea.

There was just one major difference between the South Korean and Iranian cases: Iran never enriched uranium at a level that could only represent an interest in nuclear weapons - but South Korea did.


Read more: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KL22Ak02.html

[Igel]

1. I love Gareth Porter.

He's always good at spotting something that I know nothing about, but quickly can find out more than he bothers to say.

Often he adds in the necessary facts, but sometimes late, after the take-away message is set. For example, they carried out activities and experiments for over 20 years. Of course, the one experiment was in 1982 on Pu. The next, in 2000, was on U.

In other words, for over twenty years of the over twenty years they carried out experiments they carried out no experiments. Screw-ball sentence with screw-ball content? Sure. That's what you get when you summarize Porter.

And sometimes he leaves out things. So the inference of having produced 77% pure enriched U is awesome. What could the motivation be for having that high a target for enrichment? Well, if you only have a few mg of it when you're done, you have to wonder. If you realize that it was done in a couple of steps and they probably didn't have 77% as the target--they probably didn't have an actual target, except when aiming the laser--it's even more of a question. Esp. if there's no back-office development or talk of initiators.

Of course, the talk of having used almost half the "natural U metal" that the supposedly evil Iranians used is stunning. 3.5 kg vs 8.0. But the S. Koreans didn't actually use that much. 3.5 kg natural U would yield about 25 g 100% U-235. They achieved "milligram quantities" of stuff only 77% pure. Assuming 100 mg or less--after that you usually start talking grams--that's 18 g of the raw metal used, not 3500 g. (Unless I did my sums wrong.)

Porter. You always learn something interesting after reading one of his articles. Ah, at least that's more than can be said for many writers.