‘북한의 핵실험 임박’ 정보는 부정확 (NYT, 2005, 7, 25)

미국 정부는 올해 봄 북한의 핵실험이 임박했다는 정보를 관련 우방들에 전달하면서 이를 북한이 6자회담에 시급히 복귀해야 하는 이유로 들었지만 사실 이 정보는 정확한 것이 아니었다고 뉴욕 타임스가 25일 보도했다.

지난 5월 북한의 핵실험 임박설을 특종 보도했던 이 신문은 미국이 우방들에 이와 같은 경고를 발령한 것과 비슷한 시기인 지난 4월26일 중앙정보국(CIA)은 의회에서 행한 비밀 브리핑을 통해 북한이 조만간 핵실험을 할 것 같지는 않다고 보고했다고 전했다.

타임스는 특히 북한의 핵실험이 임박했다는 주장의 근거로 제시된 관측대 건설에 관한 정보는 일부 분석가들과 행정부 관리들에 의해 나왔지만 이는 결정적이지 않거나 불완전한 자료에 대한 잘못된 해석에 기반을 둔 것이 분명하며 정부 밖으로 회람되지 말았어야 했다는 지적도 있다고 밝혔다.

타임스는 CIA가 의회에 보고한 견해는 “정보기관 전체”의 의견을 반영한 것이었지만 북한의 핵실험이 임박했다고 보는 에너지부와 국방부 분석가들의 주장은 반영되지 않았으며 반면에 우방들에게는 북한의 핵실험 가능성을 낮게 평가한 미국 “정보기관 전체”의 의견은 전달되지 않았다고 설명했다.

타임스는 핵실험과 관련된 북한의 진정한 의도는 영영 파악되지 않을 수도 있지만 이를 둘러싼 올해 봄의 엇갈리는 견해는 북한 핵 문제를 평가하는 과정이 정치와 부정확한 정보에 의해 얼마나 취약해질 수 있는 지를 잘 보여 준다고 평가했다.

이는 또한 미국의 이라크 침공 직전 이라크의 대량살상무기(WMD) 보유 여부를 둘러싸고 정부 기관들 및 정책 담당자들 사이에서 빚어졌던 것과 같은 긴장을 보여주고 있다고 타임스는 지적했다.

뉴욕 타임스에 따르면 북한의 핵실험 준비 의혹이 제기된 것은 지난해였다. 에너지부 산하 3개 핵실험실 간부들은 함경북도 길주에서 벌어지고 있는 터널 공사가 핵실험 준비를 위한 것일 수도 있다고 판단했지만 조지 부시 대통령 행정부는 아마도 이라크에 매여 있었기 때문인지 처음에는 이에 관해 거의 언급을 하지 않았다.

북한의 핵실험이 임박했다는 경고를 맨처음 내놓은 기관은 국방정보국(DIA)이었다. 1998년 인도의 핵실험 징후를 놓쳤던 이 기관의 분석가들은 주로 위성이 촬영한 사진에 의존하는 경향이 있다.

CIA와 국무부 산하 정보 담당자들은 조심스러운 입장이었으며 여기에는 핵실험이 초래할 중대한 정치적 여파를 감안할 때 북한이 이를 감행하지는 못할 것이라는 정치적 판단도 작용했다고 타임스는 분석했다.

2월 10일 북한의 핵보유 선언과 6자 회담의 군축회담 전환 요구에 이어 4월 들어 원자로 가동중단으로 추가 핵무기 제조 우려가 고조된 후 CIA는 의회 브리핑에서 북한의 터널 굴착 활동은 핵실험 준비 과정과 일치하지만 조만간 핵실험을 할 것 같지는 않다고 보고했다. 이때까지만 해도 관측대에 대한 언급은 없었다.

백악관도 핵실험이 중국의 격분을 불러 일으키리라는 점을 들어 북한이 핵실험을 할 가능성은 ‘낮음’에서 ‘낮은 것보다는 약간 높음’ 사이로 판단하고 있었다.

그럼에도 불구하고 스티븐 해들리 백악관 안보보좌관은 우방들에 이와 같은 정보를 전달해야 한다고 결정했다. 그러나 막상 한국, 일본 등 우방들에 전달된 정보는 근거자료의 상당부분이 생략된데다 정치적 분석마저 배제된 채 위성을 통해 감지된 북한의 활동만을 강조해 이를 받아보는 입장에서는 훨씬 더 긴박감을 느낄 수 밖에 없었다.

더욱이 관측대에 관한 언급까지 가미돼 한국과 일본의 관리들은 북한의 핵실험이 임박했다는 느낌을 갖게 됐다고 뉴욕 타임스는 지적했다.

관측대에 관한 이야기가 어디에서 비롯됐는지는 불확실하지만 한 고위 관리는 이것이 위성 촬영 사진을 잘못 판단한 결과로 믿고 있다고 밝혔다.

북한의 핵실험장으로 의심되는 장소에 관측대가 건설되고 있다는 정보를 뉴욕 타임스에 흘린 관리들도 그 후에는 이 구조물이 진짜 관측대인지, 심지어는 핵실험 장소와 무슨 연관이 있는지조차 확실하지 않다고 발을 빼기 시작했다.

결국 미국으로부터 북한의 핵실험 징후에 관한 정보를 전달받은 한국, 중국 등은 북한에 이를 강행하지 말 것을 경고했고 해들리 보좌관도 언론과의 인터뷰를 통해 공개적으로 북한의 핵실험시 제재 가능성에 대해 언급했다.

그 이후 북한을 6자회담으로 끌어 들이기 위한 외교적 노력이 가속화된 결과 회담은 재개됐으며 최근의 위성 사진들은 문제가 됐던 함경북도 길주에서의 의심스러운 활동이 크게 잦아들었음을 보여주고 있다.

그러나 분석가들은 이것이 무엇을 의미하는 지 확신하지 못하고 있다. 핵정보를 담당하는 한 고위 관리는 이것이 핵폭탄이 지하에 매설됨으로써 핵실험 준비가 끝났음을 의미할 수도, 아니면 서방의 외교적 활동을 재촉하는 기만책이라는 목적을 달성했음을 시사하는 것일수도 있다고 지적했다고 뉴욕 타임스는 밝혔다.(출처: 연합뉴스)

(원문)

July 25, 2005

North Korea Nuclear Goals: Case of Mixed Signals

By DOUGLAS JEHL and DAVID E. SANGER

This article was reported by William J. Broad, Douglas Jehl, David E. Sanger and Thom Shanker, and written by Mr. Jehl and Mr. Sanger.

WASHINGTON, July 24 – Early this year, American spy satellites detected a spike in suspicious tunneling activity at a highly secretive military site in the mountains of North Korea.

It alarmed some of the government’s top nuclear analysts, who saw it as a sign that North Korea might be preparing to make good on threats to conduct its first test of a nuclear weapon. There was even tantalizing talk among some officials in Washington that the North Koreans were so far along in preparing for an underground detonation that they had built a reviewing stand for dignitaries to witness the earth tremble.

The prospect of an imminent test became a crucial point in briefings by the Bush administration to its Asian allies and China, arguing that the North Korean threat was growing rapidly and that they needed to increase pressure to resume six-nation talks aimed at disarmament. After weeks of diplomatic maneuvering, North Korea agreed to resume the talks, which are to begin Tuesday.

But behind that urgent view of North Korea’s activities lies a much more complicated, and at times contradictory, picture. It shows some of the same strains over the use of intelligence that came to divide federal agencies and policy makers before the Iraq invasion.

In a classified briefing on April 26, at about the same time Washington was warning its allies, the Central Intelligence Agency told Congress that it was unlikely that North Korea would conduct a nuclear test anytime soon. Moreover, the White House had assessed the probability of a North Korean test this spring as relatively low, officials say. And they say that the claim by some analysts and administration officials of a reviewing stand, which was reported in a front-page article in The New York Times and then by several other news organizations, was apparently based on misinterpretations of inconclusive or incomplete data and should not have been circulated outside the government.

North Korea’s true intentions on testing – whether the activity in the mountainous Kilju region was genuine or an attempt to deceive the world – may never be known. But a review of this spring’s divergent assessments, based on interviews with officials from Congress, the administration, American intelligence agencies and foreign governments, reveals how the process of assessing North Korea’s weapons is vulnerable to politics and to the imprecision of intelligence. Most of the officials and analysts spoke on the condition of anonymity because the subject concerned classified information and issues of political sensitivity.

The limitations of intelligence-gathering are particularly acute with North Korea, which one former senior State Department official described as the blackest of black holes. The West has few, if any, spies there and the North Koreans are famous for their strategy of deception. Most of the intelligence driving the two assessments was obtained by satellite, leaving it open to conflicting interpretations, or agendas.

Fears About a Nuclear Test

The question of whether North Korea would conduct a test had great significance because, many experts and officials fear, such a step could ignite a nuclear arms race in Asia.

If the more urgent view of the test preparations was circulated by the Bush administration as it sought to restart the six-nation talks, the more benign version was promoted by the C.I.A., which is struggling to overcome criticism for overestimating Iraq’s unconventional weapons. Although the government overhauled its sprawling intelligence structure in the wake of 9/11 and the Iraq war, the North Korea episode highlights a lingering lack of coordination in assessing even the most serious threats.

While the C.I.A. briefing to Congress was explicitly represented as the view of the full “intelligence community,” it apparently did not reflect the more urgent views of nuclear intelligence analysts in the Energy Department and the Pentagon, according to people present. And foreign allies did not hear the same message contained in the “intelligence community” version, that is, that a test was unlikely.

The White House and the Pentagon, as well as some nuclear weapons experts at the Energy Department, described the level of tunneling and other activity at the suspected test site as unprecedented. But the C.I.A. and the State Department said that while the activity was high, they judged it as within the pattern of peaks and valleys that had occurred over the previous year. The C.I.A., citing political factors, also said it believed that a test was not imminent because such a step would anger China and be a major escalation in North Korea’s confrontation with the West.

Some Congressional and intelligence officials drew parallels between elements of the North Korea assessment, particularly the unverified reports of a reviewing stand, and the handling of some of the prewar intelligence on Iraq’s weapons and Al Qaeda connections by administration officials.

The information about the reviewing stand was not part of the formal briefing to allies but was relayed informally, officials said. While it was considered a far less significant warning sign than the increased tunneling, one administration official said, it was “easy to understand.”

After the claims of a reviewing stand were reported on May 6 in The Times, Pentagon officials repeated them, including to several foreign newspapers, most notably in South Korea. But the claims were never cited in formal intelligence assessments or mentioned in the C.I.A.’s closed briefing to the Senate Intelligence Committee in April. Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, the Republican chairman of the Senate panel, said in an interview that the committee had studied the reviewing stand claims and determined that there was “no there there.”

Ultimately, said officials involved in the process, the judgment of North Korea’s activities seem shaped both by the expertise of analysts and the assumptions of policy makers about what North Korea is up to.

Arthur Brown, who retired in February as the head of the directorate of operations for Asia at the Central Intelligence Agency and who spent more than 20 years studying North Korea, said the divergent assessments were not surprising. “People throughout the intelligence world are on the defensive; they want to be very careful,” he said.

Plans for an Arsenal

North Korea’s dream of a nuclear arsenal dates back a half century, to the years just after the Korean War. Recently declassified documents show that Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s founder, pressed his cold war allies – first Russia, then China – for nuclear technology. By the early 1990’s, Mr. Kim appeared to have achieved his goal of building one or two atomic weapons. But for American intelligence officers tracking North Korea’s progress, the assessment, in the words of one former senior official, was “one part intelligence, one part logic, one part educated guess.”

At times, American intelligence has fallen victim to North Korea’s clever deceptions. In 1998, the Clinton administration demanded access to a huge underground site that a military intelligence agency believed was a nuclear reactor. The North Koreans reluctantly agreed, in return for aid. But when an American-led inspection team got there, they found the cavernous site empty and improperly configured for a reactor.

After President Bush took office he cited North Korea, now run by Kim Jong Il, as part of the “axis of evil” and ordered intelligence agencies to work hard on assessing its threat. A senior intelligence official said that in 2002 alone, the agencies produced three National Intelligence Estimates, classified documents meant to reflect the combined judgment of the entire intelligence community. Among other topics, they addressed North Korea’s ability to produce bombs from spent reactor fuel.

Last year, a new concern emerged. Signs multiplied that North Korea might be preparing for a nuclear test, which would shatter any doubts about its atomic prowess.

American satellites, monitoring about a half-dozen suspicious sites in North Korea, focused on rising activity in the rugged hinterlands of the Kilju region, where a tunnel entrance had been gouged into the flank of a high mountain.

It was one of many mysterious tunnels. “They are mole people,” said Mr. Brown, now an executive at Control Risks Group, an international consulting company. “There are hundreds, thousands of holes in the ground, and we don’t know what’s in them.” Some are mines, American officials say. Others could protect military planes from attack, or house elements of a nuclear program, the officials say.

Last year, as disagreements arose within the government over interpretations of the evidence, the directors of the nation’s three nuclear weapons laboratories, run by the Energy Department, were convened for a top-secret assessment, according to an official familiar with the study.

Sounding an Alarm

While Energy Department analysts saw the tunneling activity as a possible prelude to a test, the Bush administration said little at first, perhaps because it was tied down in Iraq, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats. Eventually, the president and his aides decided to sound the alarm because of the potential global political ramifications, administration officials said. They also had their eye on domestic politics.

Last October, fearing a pre-election test, the White House revealed the activity to The Times, conceding that it was uncertain whether North Korea was preparing for an explosion, or merely bluffing. In January, more activity set off a similar scare at the White House, which did not reveal its concerns, according to a senior administration official.

This spring, more movement at Kilju touched off the latest round of assessments.

In each of those scares, the intelligence community has been divided, perhaps reflecting powerful yet contradictory lessons of past mistakes. Since Iraq, Congressional investigators and a presidential commission have warned against the dangers of overstating intelligence. Yet in some quarters, officials say, an equally powerful lesson is the failure of American intelligence agencies to detect nuclear test preparations in India in 1998.

“The way the community is working,” said a senior nuclear intelligence official, “they evaluate the present through the lens of the most recent catastrophe.”

The Defense Intelligence Agency and the Energy Department, which missed the 1998 test evidence, have been among the first to raise alarms about North Korea. Analysts at those agencies tend to look largely at satellite imagery, comparing it with tests in Pakistan and China – two of North Korea’s nuclear suppliers.

The C.I.A. has been far more cautious, saying that the evidence could point to a “denial and deception” operation or to nonnuclear testing, or simply a nuclear project in its early stages. The State Department’s intelligence arm, which, like the C.I.A., is particularly attuned to the political implications of a test, has also expressed doubts.

Even for some scientists, assessing North Korea is more art than science. One government expert on nuclear testing said the Kilju intelligence made it look like the North Koreans were in final preparations for a test because material was being put back into the tunnel, suggesting that it was being sealed for a detonation. But on balance, he judged it a ruse.”A large component of what they do is designed to get a predictable reaction,” he said. “It’s a small investment. They’ve given us all the indicators of something that might not be happening.”

Assessing the Intelligence

At the White House and the C.I.A. this spring, there were several meetings to assess the latest satellite imagery. North Korea experts – inside the government and out – said they were especially concerned since what appeared to be preparations came in the context of brash provocations by the North Koreans.

On Feb. 10, North Korea publicly declared itself a nuclear weapons state. It demanded that the six-nation disarmament talks become mutual arms reduction talks with the United States – like those Washington used to hold with the Soviet Union. In April, it shut down its main nuclear reactor – raising fears that it was making good on threats to harvest nuclear fuel for more bombs.

Even so, inside the government, the emerging consensus seemed to be against the likelihood of a test. On April 26, a C.I.A. briefer told the Senate Intelligence Committee that the tunneling was “consistent” with a possible test, said government officials with detailed knowledge of the session, but that a detonation was not likely any time soon. There was no mention of a reviewing stand.

Senator Roberts would not discuss the contents of the briefing, but he said he knew of nothing specific that would have led analysts to warn that North Korea was moving closer to testing.

The traditional C.I.A. view is that North Korea tends to escalate its provocations toward the West incrementally, and that a nuclear test would be an extreme step. “Once they do that, they have nothing left,” the United States official said.

The C.I.A. briefing of the Senate committee was overseen by the national intelligence officer responsible for issuing warnings about impending threats, an indication that it had the imprimatur of the wider intelligence community.

Even so, there was no mention of dissenting opinions within that community – particularly from the Energy Department and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Those dissents appear reminiscent of the fierce behind-the-scenes arguments over weapons in Iraq, which only came to light after the American invasion.

One senior official involved in the assessment recalled that “there were various camps and groupings, but I don’t remember there ever being a consolidated community view.” Such views are usually worked out in the process of writing National Intelligence Estimates, but apparently none on North Korea has been done this year, according to several intelligence officials.

In its own deliberations, White House officials were also cautious. A senior administration official said they concluded that the chances of an imminent test were low to somewhat higher than low, chiefly because a test would so anger the Chinese – the North’s only significant supplier of food and fuel.

Still, around the time of the Senate briefing, administration officials – including Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser – concluded that the United States’ crucial negotiating partners had to be informed. But the briefing they received, while based on the same intelligence, left a different impression.

Officials in Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing – and some foreign diplomats in Washington – heard what one American official called a “more stripped down” version, focusing on activity detected by satellites. The contents of the briefing are confidential, but officials of several countries familiar with it said it contained little of the political analysis of North Korea’s intentions, and left open the question of timing. They said their impression, therefore, was that North Korea might conduct a test quite soon.

That impression was bolstered by the talk of the reviewing stand, which one American official acknowledged was “all over the place,” even if it was not part of any official briefing.

It is unclear where that talk originated. One senior administration official said he believed that an image was initially “misinterpreted” as part of the suspected test site. Since that raw intelligence was not included in any formal reports, it appeared not to have been subjected to the kind of intense, multiagency vetting that verified intelligence receives. Officials who initially spoke about the reviewing stand, and described it as luxurious, backed away beginning in late May after The Times asked further questions, saying additional reviews of the evidence raised serious doubts about the whether the structure was a reviewing stand or even related to the test site.

Some officials apparently quickly dismissed the notion of a reviewing stand for an underground test. But others were predisposed to look for one because of another past intelligence failure: after American officials missed preparations for a 1998 North Korean missile test, they later found that one overlooked signal was the construction of a reviewing stand in the weeks before the test.

Analysts also observed other “V.I.P. preparations” around Kilju, according to several officials familiar with the intelligence, including a helipad and housing that was luxurious by North Korean standards, although officials later said it was at least a year old.

Warnings by the Allies

After the urgent briefings of allies, which made headlines in the United States and Asia, officials in Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing issued warnings to North Korea not to test. The South Korean foreign minister, Ban Ki Moon, said North Korea would “further deepen its isolation” if it took “such reckless actions.”

On May 15, Mr. Hadley publicly warned North Korea for the first time against testing, saying the United States and several Pacific powers would take punitive action. “We have seen some evidence that says that they may be preparing for a nuclear test,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.” “We have talked to our allies about that.”

Officials in the office of John D. Negroponte, the new director of national intelligence, whose mission is to coordinate intelligence functions, declined to discuss specifics of the North Korea case. But they said the National Intelligence Council was putting in place a system to identify and resolve important differences between agencies on crucial issues like North Korea, while still encouraging debate.

So far, North Korea has not conducted a test. After the warnings to the North Koreans, several diplomatic moves – including offers of food and electrical power – helped bring the North back to the long-stalled talks, although many experts predict that if the talks fail, the North may conduct a test, or threaten to.

The most recent satellite images of the Kilju show that the suspicious activity has subsided. But analysts, typically, are unsure what that means. The site could be unrelated to nuclear activity. And a senior nuclear intelligence official said it might also indicate that a bomb was buried and ready for testing, or that the North Koreans had accomplished what they wanted – a deception that roused the West to diplomatic action.

“They know that this is being looked at intently,” he said. “Maybe they achieved what they wanted.”

Douglas Jehl, David E. Sanger and Thom Shanker reported from Washington for this article, and William J. Broad from New York.

정부지원금 0%, 회원의 회비로 운영됩니다

참여연대 후원/회원가입