Don't Breathe Easily Just Yet
Dr. Siegfried Hecker warns that Pyongyang's disablement, dramatically demonstrated in the detonation of its Yongbyon cooling tower, is not irreversible.
«Highest priority must be placed on completing the disablement ... and proceeding to the dismantlement state,» wrote Siegfried Hecker, a former director of the Los Alamos National Lab and current professor at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, in a report on his recent visit to Yongbyon.
The US State Department says North Korea has completed at least eight of an agreed-upon 11 disablement steps.
According to Dr. Hecker, actions taken so far include removal of all of the Yongbyon complex's uranium conversion furnaces, the cutting of steel pipe cooling loops outside the reactor building, and the removal of the drive mechanism for the trolley that moves spent reactor fuel into the reprocessing facility.
At this point it would take at least six to 18 months for North Korea to repair and reconstitute its plutonium complex, according to Hecker's report.
Once all fuel rods remaining in the Yongbyon reactor are removed, one of the most important of the disablement steps – the removal of control rod drive mechanisms – is scheduled to occur.
«My overall assessment is that the disablement actions are significant . . . However, they have retained a hedge to be able to restart the facilities if the agreement falls through,» wrote Hecker.
The fox is not in the bag.
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