November 2002: CIA Says North Korea Is Building Uranium Enrichment Facility

The CIA informs Congress that North Korea’s uranium enrichment program is progressing: “The North is constructing a plant that could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for two or more nuclear weapons per year when fully operational.” Although it is clear that North Korea has acquired some centrifuges needed for such a facility (see Mid-June 1998), it is unclear whether it is actually under construction at this time and where the site might be. North Korea has the other parts of the process necessary to build a uranium bomb: half a dozen mines for yellowcake, a uranium processing facility with the capacity to process 300 kg of ore a day in Kusong, 30 miles west of the Korean nuclear power plant at Yongbyon-kun, and a uranium concentration facility in Namch’on, 30 miles north of the demilitarized zone. A uranium enrichment site with a cascade of at least 1,000 centrifuges would be the last element in the process. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 281, 517-518]