Author Archives: kerr

Great Moments in Diplomacy

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For your entertainment while I am trapped in O’Hare…

According to “the BBC,”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6441461.stm Israel has recalled its ambassador to El Salvador “after he was found drunk and naked apart from bondage gear.”

Here’s my favorite part:

bq. Apparently the man was “able to identify himself to police only after a rubber ball had been removed from his mouth.”

Foreign Mnistry spokeswoman Zehavit Ben-Hillel described his behavior as “unbecoming of a diplomat.” Haaretz “has more.”:http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/836258.html

Depends on what kind of diplomacy you’re engaged in…

*Update:*

I had to add this tidbit from an “AFP article, via Rawstory.”:http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Israel_envoy_recalled_over_bondage__03122007.html

Acccording to a FM source, the ambassador’s public appearance marked “the first time” that he “had ever distingished himself in any way.”

Best. Euphemism. Ever.

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Jeffrey and I are in Chicago (well, Oak Lawn, IL) for a friend’s wedding. A nearby motel advertises, I shit you not:

bq. *The Four Hour Nap.*

Have a nice weekend.

*Update:*

Jeffrey has kindly supplied “some”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/images/889.jpg photographic “evidence.”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/images/888.jpg

North Korea: Yet More on Disablement

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Yonhap had an interesting “piece”:http://english.yna.co.kr/Engnews/20070305/630000000020070305224932E3.html the other day about North Korea’s thoughts RE: disabling the Yongbyon facilities.

According to an unnamed “ranking South Korean official:”

Kim Kye-gwan, the North’s chief nuclear negotiator, has reaffirmed that disabling the communist country’s nuclear facilities will be an “irreversible process,” after which the facilities cannot be restarted for use, the official told reporters while speaking on condition of anonymity.

The North Korean made his remarks during a meeting with his South Korean counterpart, Chun Yung-woo, in New York on Saturday, according to the official.

These comments are enlightening, given that a Feb. 13 “KCNA statement”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1354/kcna-on-six-party-statement
said that North Korea had agreed to the “_temporary suspension_ of the operation of its nuclear facilities.”

According to the South Korean official

bq. “Kim said his country only used the expression ‘temporary suspension’ because the facilities can be restarted at any time until they are completely disabled,” the official said, adding there was “absolutely no difference of opinion between North Korea and the other countries on what ‘disabling’ means.”

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.

[ Via “Andreas Persbo.”:http://verificationthoughts.blogspot.com/2007/03/denuking-north-korea.html ]

Previous disablement post “here.”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1371/doe-on-disablement

USSR: No Satellite Smashing

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Wade has a great “article”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2007_03/ChinaSatellite.asp in the new _ACT_ about the Chinese ASAT test. It comes complete with a box titled “The USSR’s Past Anti-Satellite Testing.”

Here’s the lead:

bq. The Soviet Union pursued anti-satellite (ASAT) programs for decades but apparently never smashed a satellite into bits as China did recently and the United States did in 1985.

Given what he told me, Wade should do a story just about the research he did for the piece.

Anyway, the rest is below:

Before instituting a moratorium on ASAT test launches in August 1983, the Kremlin conducted at least 20 ASAT tests beginning in 1968. The Soviet tests involved the use of interceptor vehicles with explosives designed to detonate near their intended target.

None of the Soviet tests resulted in a target’s complete destruction. Indeed, *Nicholas Johnson, NASA’s chief expert on orbital debris, told Arms Control Today Feb. 24 that “only one Soviet ASAT target ever released debris as a result of an ASAT engagement.” He reported that four pieces of debris were detected from a November 1968 test.*

Nevertheless, Johnson noted that even though targets were not obliterated, *the tests were not necessarily failures. “In [the November 1968 test] and other successful engagements, the target satellite might well have been ‘destroyed’ from an operational viewpoint,” he stated.*

The Pentagon assessed the Soviet Union as first attaining an operational ASAT capability in 1971. The now-disbanded congressional Office of Technology Assessment reported in an extensive September 1985 report on ASAT systems that “Soviet ASAT capabilities threaten U.S. military capabilities to some extent now and potentially to a much greater extent in the future.”
*Moscow continued to investigate ASAT systems, allegedly including lasers, after its 1983 test moratorium, but it is uncertain how extensive and productive those efforts were and what Russia’s exact ASAT capabilities are today.*

DOE on Disablement

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Jeffrey has “a great post”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1419/more-on-disablement featuring a DOE report discussing the “disablement” of the DPRK’s Yongbyon reactor.

The report’s argument for dismantling the mechanism that lowers the control rods into the reactor core reminded me of an RIA Novosti article that I cited in “this post.”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1360/north-korea-and-disablement

According to that piece:

bq. North Korea is ready to remove graphite rods from its nuclear reactor in Yongbyon in exchange for greater energy assistance…

[ *Point of clarification:* I misunderstood the DOE report and the RIA Novosti story. The two solutions described aren’t the same, though the article may well be describing what the North Koreans agreed to – which illustrates the potential difficulties that the denuclearization WG will face.

I should also point out that the phrase “graphite rods” doesn’t make any sense…it almost certainly means fuel rods. Graphite is the moderator for the reactor and is not in rod form. Given the arrangements under the Agreed Framework for monitoring the ~8,000 spent fuel rods, it’s not surprising that the North Koreans might agree to remove them and put them in a pond or something.]

Incidentally, when I was working on the North Korea story for the latest issue of _ACT_, a former Clinton administration official told me that various ways of “dismanlting” the Yongbyon reactor were kicked around back when the thing was still shut down. Apparently, one of the ideas involved pouring cement into the reactor. There were also some more complex proposals floated, needless to say.

BTW, if you are still feeling sluggish, “watch some Converge.”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNhwKYBwF1c

More On Ignatius

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This is worse than I “first thought.”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1363/shorter-david-ignatius

Can anyone think of any events at all concerning North Korea that have been left out of this little narrative? Like, say, the ones Philip Z “glossed over”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1364/shorter-philip-zelikow?

Treasury *applied the new tools to North Korea in September 2005,* when it put a bank in Macao called Banco Delta Asia on the blacklist. There was no legal proceeding — just a notice in the Federal Register summarizing the evidence: Banco Delta Asia had been providing illicit financial services to North Korean government agencies and front companies for more than 20 years, according to the Treasury notice.

*snip*

Wham! [Pow! KaBlammo!] The international payments window shut almost instantly on Pyongyang’s pet bank. Transactions with U.S. entities stopped, but the Treasury announcement also put other countries on notice to beware of Banco Delta Asia. The Macao banking authorities, realizing that they needed the oxygen of the international financial system to survive, took regulatory action on their own and froze the bank’s roughly $24 million in North Korean assets. And around Asia, banks began looking for possible links to North Korean front companies — and shutting them down.

Wham! indeed. Not just a shitty 80s band, I guess.

OMFG

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DFeith has his “own website.”:http://www.dougfeith.com/

!/images/8.jpg!

What a train wreck. Take this example:

The CIA has made important errors over the years – think of the Iraqi WMD assessments. To guard against such errors, *policy officials should be praised, not slapped, for challenging CIA products.*

More on Feith “here.”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1348/feith-osd-update

[_Thanks to SLK for the tip._]