Pentagon Says It Has No Evidence of North Korean Nuclear Test
By Al Pessin
Pentagon
13 October 2006
A U.S. Defense official says the department has no evidence of a North Korean nuclear test, based on analysis of seismic data and air samples taken after North Korea claimed it detonated a nuclear device on Monday. The official says that means U.S. experts cannot say for sure whether there was a nuclear test or not.
The official who spoke to VOA Friday on condition of anonymity says experts have finished analyzing the contents of gas canisters from sensor aircraft that flew near North Korea in recent days. The official says they found no evidence of radiological fallout. He also says the analysis of seismic data from the area cannot determine whether the explosion that was detected was nuclear or not.
The official says defense department experts cannot say for sure that there was no nuclear test. He says they simply cannot confirm that there was one based on the available information.
North Korea says the test was small, and that it contained all the fallout, but experts say that is very difficult to do.
Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he expected the analysis to provide some information on the North Korean explosion, but he said it may not be possible to come to a definitive conclusion.
With a map of Korean Peninsula behind him, Donald Rumsfeld gestures during press briefing at Pentagon, Oct. 11, 2006
"It＇s unlikely we will know everything, because it is a closed society," he said. "And absent certain kinds of intelligence, it＇s impossible to know, of certain knowledge, certain things that take place in a closed society."
The defense official who spoke Friday says there clearly was some sort of seismic event on Monday in the area near a facility in North Korea that U.S. intelligence believes is related to the country＇s nuclear program.
He says there are four theories among defense department experts as to what happened. He says the seismic disturbance could have been a conventional explosion by design; it could have been an attempted nuclear test in which only the conventional triggering explosion happened; it could have been a nuclear test that detonated only partially; or, it could have been what the North Koreans claim, a very small nuclear explosion, by design, with the fallout fully contained. But the U.S. official says there is no evidence to support that claim from the air samples and seismic data.
The official says U.S. forces are continuing to monitor the area around North Korea, particularly because of the country＇s threat to conduct a further test.
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