Over the Line
North Korea has no intention of selling atomic materials to terrorist groups, a South Korean daily reported Thursday, citing an expert from a U.S. think tank.
During his visit to Pyongyang late last month, Selig Harrison, director of the Asian program at the Center for International Policy in Washington, was told by North Korean officials that Pyongyang would not sell nuclear materials to al-Qaida or any other terrorist group.
“The North Koreans said they would never allow such a transfer to al-Qaida or anyone else,” Harrison said in an interview in Washington with Seoul’s Munhwa Ilbo newspaper. North Korea is using its nuclear program as a tool to boost its negotiation leverage, he said.
. . . .Harrison, who enjoys exceptional access to the North Korean leaders, traveled to Pyongyang April 20-23. He has been highly critical of the Bush administration’s hard-line policy toward the communist state.
From the New York Times, February 2, 2005:
WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 – Scientific tests have led American intelligence agencies and government scientists to conclude with near certainty that North Korea sold processed uranium to Libya, bolstering earlier indications that the reclusive state exported sensitive fuel for atomic weapons, according to officials with access to the intelligence.The determination, which has circulated among senior government officials in recent weeks, has touched off a hunt to determine if North Korea has also sold uranium to other countries, including Iran and Syria.
The report also hints that Bush will have something to say about North Korea in his SOTU tonight, and that the conclusion being drawn by the Administration is that time is running out. Expect more denial and outright stupidity from Selig Harrison as well.
Why should the sales to Libya concern us?
Libya is one of seven regimes listed by the State Department as state sponsors of terrorism. The country has a long history of support for terrorist groups in the Middle East and more than thirty terrorist groups worldwide. Libya provided arms, funding, and training for a wide variety of Palestinian terrorist groups (Fatah, the Palestine Liberation Front, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, and the Abu Nidal group), as well as the Kurdistan Workers Party, the Colombian terrorist group M19, the Red Brigades in Italy, and assorted other terrorist groups in Japan, Turkey, Northern Ireland, Thailand and elsewhere.
Libya was caught red-handed sponsoring a terrorist attack against Americans in 1986, when it bombed a German discotheque frequented by American servicemen, killing two Americans. The Reagan Administration retaliated by bombing Libyan targets on April 15, 1986, narrowly missing Qadhafi himself. Although Libya has not been caught red-handed in launching terrorist attacks in recent years, it has not closed down all of its terrorist training camps and could resume its terrorist activities as soon as it finds it convenient to do so.
In addition to its involvement in the Lockerbie bombing, Libya is also responsible for the 1989 bombing of a French passenger jet in Niger, which killed 170 people. A French court convicted in absentia six Libyans, including the brother in law of Colonel Qadhafi, for carrying out the bombing. Libya offered to pay a paltry $33 million in compensation to the families.
Since then, of course, Libya has agreed to compensate the victims of the Lockerbie attack and (apparently) come clean on its nukes. The Council on Foreign Relations, predictably, is less alarmed about the terrorist connections, although they missed a key piece of evidence–Libya’s recent $12 million payment to a Philippine terror group, disguised as a “ransom” payment. The terrorist group? Abu Sayyaf, which is closely tied to al-Qaeda, and which was crushed with considerable help from my former habitual clients in the 1/1 Special Forces, based at Torii Station, Okinawa, Japan.
So would this qualify as a step over Jack Pritchard’s red line, or would that only happen when North Korea places a complete working nuke directly into the hands of Ayman al-Zawahiri? This is a great illustration of why Pritchard’s open declaration of a red line was so dangerous.
We may also have our answer to the mystery of the U.S. Ambassador’s sudden flight to Washington.