If these reports in the Washington Post and the New York Times are true, which looks likely, the U.S. administration has committed the biggest foreign policy blunder possible.
North Korea did not intend to build nukes, but the administration, blinded by its own light, made them do so.
The Bush administration is backing away from its long-held assertions that North Korea has an active clandestine program to enrich uranium, leading some experts to believe that the original U.S. intelligence that started the crisis over Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions may have been flawed.
Back in 2002, an agreement was in place that guaranteed North Korea some oil supplies if it stayed away from nukes and kept its nuclear programs under IAEA supervision.
The U.S. then found that North Korea had received some 20 centrifuges from Pakistan and had bought lots of aluminium tubes, though the quality of those tubes was in doubt and likely unsuitable for uranium enrichment.
But the administration, based on intelligence analysis, assumed that North Korea had started a uranium enrichment program to build a nuclear Uranium weapon.
It immediately went to hostility mode, did stop the agreed to deal and refused any further serious negotiations. Tit led to tat and North Korea threw out the IAEA inspectors and built nuclear weapons using plutonium that had been under IAEA supervision.
This of course did make much more sense than to start an enrichment program. Uranium weapons are bulky and heavy and to deliver them large bombers, which North Korea does not have, are necessary. Plutonium weapons are much lighter and can be fitted on missiles which North Korea has available. This fact alone should have softened the intelligence estimate. (For the same rational reason I seriously doubt that Iran’s Uranium enrichment program is for weapon purposes. Why build a bomb one cannot deliver?)
So why was the early assessment wrong? The intelligence people would not say. Unlike with the Iraq intelligence there was no need to intentionally manipulate the assessment on North Korea. There is no oil to win there and there is no other motive for exaggeration I can think of.
But the psychological background may be one of projection. Ultra-hawks like John Bolton tend to believe that their enemies would do exactly as they would do. They project their own amorality, fear and irrationality on others. The various instantiations of the Committee on the Present Danger are evidence of this tendency. Adding to that was an acute "anything but Clinton" psychosis.
Now, five years after a neurotic exaggerated intelligence assessment and the breakdown of relations, North Korea does have several nukes and the U.S. is in the same or even a worse position than back in 2002. North Korea now will get oil for putting some of its programs under IAEA supervision but in between gained the deterrence to avert any military pressure.
While the Iraq intelligence was intentionally wrong, and therefore not a showcase of a lack of ability of clandestine services, the case of North Korea really proves their incompetence.
If they were unintentionally wrong on North Korea, where can one trust their abilities at all?