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Pyongyang's Weapons Test

North Korean Nukes to the Highest Bidder?

By Georg Mascolo in Washington

Following North Korea's nuclear weapons test the US is pushing the UN Security Council to impose tough sanctions against Pyongyang. In Washington there is growing concern that the hardline communist regime could now export its technology -- even helping terrorists acquire nuclear bombs.

Since Sunday a new chapter has been added to the history of the bomb. Satellites were in place, a US special aircraft cruised over North Korea, highly sensitive measuring instruments were ready to detect any sign of a nuclear explosion. India, Pakistan, even the United States and the Soviet Union had kept their first nuclear weapons tests a secret -- but this time no high-tech surveillance was required. Dictator Kim Jong Il simply called up before his army hit the button.

At 9 p.m. on Sunday evening the Chinese were told, three quarters of an hour later it was the turn of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. At 9.58 p.m. President George W. Bush was informed. By the time the mountain in North Korea's Hamgyong province shook, the Washington had already known for a while. Although the White House would not say if the President, who normally retires to bed early, had to be woken up to hear the news.

This type of nuclear exhibitionism is new, and the real worry following the test is how the entry of a ninth nuclear power onto the world stage will change things. No other nuclear state is quite so volatile, ruled by a shrill dictator, who is overtly using the bomb as a threat.

Officially Washington is not ruling out the possibility that the test may have been a bluff. According to US experts, the explosion was unusually small. Bush's first statement on Monday only lasted three minutes. But they were words that demanded attention.

North Korea, according to the US president, is one of the leading suppliers of missile technology. Syria and Iran, America's antagonists in the Middle East, are its longstanding customers. If nuclear technology were to be exported in the future, then America would consider this a "serious threat." And would consider North Korea fully responsible for any consequences. You can't get much clearer than that.

In New York the UN Security Council was meeting, and while a long list of possible sanctions was being debated inside, outside the beaming North Korean ambassador was asking the international community to "congratulate" his country. Possible steps being considered include the reduction of oil and food deliveries from China and the interception of North Korean ships by the US navy and its allies.

Yet, just as was the case with India and Pakistan, it won't be possible to use this kind of pressure to persuade North Korea to give up the bomb. It is, therefore, even more important to America that the newest member of the nuclear club be bound by a few incontrovertible rules. The first of which is not to pass on nuclear know-how to any high-paying interested parties. And to the US secret services, Iran is right at the top of such a list of potential customers.

The US government wouldn’t put anything past Kim Jong Il's regime. In fact Western intelligence agencies are convinced that Pyongyang is already dealing in drugs and upgraded Soviet Scud missile technology. The Bush administration also accuses North Korea of secretly printing fake $100 bills. Experts see the sanctions imposed by the US finance ministry against the country as one of the reasons for the failure of the nuclear talks.

Before the nuclear test, Donald Rumsfeld had already predicted that it would be the possible sale of nuclear technology rather than the test itself that would pose the real danger. Blueprints or even actual bombs for sale to other states, or maybe even to terrorists? Bush obviously takes this scenario seriously, so much so that in 2005 he asked the National Security Council to carry out a secret study on whether North Korea could take over the role of the Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadir Khan and establish a new nuclear black market.

Is this another typical apocalyptic vision from the US government? Not so, claim US diplomats -- they say that during the six-party talks in Beijing North Korea expressly threatened to pass on the bomb.