어떤 경우에도 핵무장한 북한정권을 허용하지 않을 것이라는 부시 행정부의 강경한 對北정책과는 별도로 미국의 안보 전문가들 사이에선 북한과 이란이 核보유국이 되는 것을 막을 방도가 없기 때문에 핵무장한 두 나라와 공존하면서 대책을 세워야 한다는 의견도 만만치 않다. 이런 주장을 하는 이들은 결코 親北的이거나 유화론자들이 아니다. 예컨대 北核 문제에 대해서 누구보다도 실무경험이 깊은 클린턴 정부 1期 때의 국방장관 윌리엄 J. 페리는 지난 여름 북한이 미사일 발사를 준비할 때 '미국은 미사일 발사대를 선제공격해야 한다'는 기고를 한 적이 있다. 페리는 북한과 이란의 핵무장을 막기가 사실상 불가능하게 되었다고 주장하는 대표적인 인물이다. 지난 5월24일 워싱턴에서 국가정책센터(Center for National Policy) 주최로 열린 행사 때 페리는 '이란과 북한, 그리고 核확산의 도전'이란 제목으로 연설했다.

이 연설에서 페리 전 장관은 미국이 직면한 가장 큰 안보상의 위기는 테러리스트들이 핵무기를 가지고 미국의 도시들을 공격하는 것이라고 강조했다. 그는 '하버드 대학의 그래험 앨리슨 교수가 10년안에 미국의 한 도시에서 테러집단에 의해서 핵폭탄이 터질 가능성을 50 대 50으로 본 것은 너무 낙관적이다. 나는 그보다 더 빨리 核테러가 일어날 것이라 생각한다'고 말했다. 그는 자신의 임기중에도 핵물질이나 핵폭탄이 테러집단에 넘어가지 않도록 하는 데 주력했다고 말했다. 核감축프로그램에 의해서 약1만 개의 핵폭탄이 미국과 러시아에서 해체되었다. 페리 전 장관은 '북한의 절망적인 경제상황으로 볼 때 그들은 핵폭탄이나 핵물질을 테러단체에 판매할 가능성이 있다'고까지 말했다.

페리 전 장관은 부시 행정부의 對北, 對이란정책이 실패하여 두 나라뿐 아니라 일본, 한국, 이집트, 사우디, 터키 같은 나라들이 핵무장 경쟁을 하게 되고 이런 핵확산의 결과로서 미국의 도시가 핵테러를 당할지도 모르는 위기가 현실이 되고 있다고 경고했다.

그는 부시 행정부에 대해 몇 가지 정책건의를 했다.
1. 외교정책을 수정하라. 직접대화와 병행하여 더 효과적인 압박수단을 강구하라.
2. 군사공격으로 핵시설을 파괴한다는 계획과 정권교체 정책을 폐기하라.
3. 핵무장한 북한 이란과 공존하면서 안보를 유지할 수 있는 대응책을 강구하라.

그는 북한의 핵시설에 대한 공격은 불가능하다고 단정했다.
'재처리시설과 원자로를 없앨 순 있지만 플루토늄이나 핵폭탄이 어디 있는지는 알 수가 없다. 가령 플루토늄과 핵폭탄을 군사공격으로 제거한다고 해도 더 위험한 일이 일어난다. 제2차 한국전쟁이다. 그 피해 규모는 1차 한국전쟁을 능가할 것이다. 더구나 한국은 전쟁에 반대하고 있다.'

'핵무장한 북한에 대해서 방어망을 만드는 것은 좋은데 반드시 구멍이 생길 것이다. 문제의 핵심은 북한이 핵폭탄을 누구한테 팔고 그가 핵폭탄을 미사일이 아니라 트럭이나 화물선에 실을 때 대책이 있는가이다. 美蘇 냉전 때처럼 미국의 압도적인 군사력으로 북한의 對美공격을 단념시킬 순 있으나 과연 그들이 핵폭탄을 파는 것을 막을 수 있을까? 미국의 도시에서 핵테러가 일어나면 북한에 대한 보복을 할 것이라고 선언할 수는 있으나 문제의 핵폭탄이 북한제임을 증명할 방법이 있을까?. 결론적으로 북한에 대해서는 매력적인 대책이 남아 있지 않다. 중국과 한국이 북한에 대한 경제적 압력수단을 쓰지 않으려 함으로 더욱 그렇다'

페리 전 장관은 이란에 대해서도 미국이나 유럽이 아무리 노력해도 핵무장을 막기 어려울 것이라고 했다. 이란의 핵시설을 공격하는 것도 한 두 번공격으로 되지 않고 기필코 긴 전쟁으로 연결될 것이라고 분석했다. 유럽지역에 미사일 방어망을 설치할 순 있지만 이란의 경우에도 가장 큰 위험은 핵물질이나 핵폭탄이 테러집단에 넘어가는 것이라고 했다. 그는 이스라엘이 단독으로 이란의 핵시설을 공격하는 것은 미국에 의한 공격보다 더 큰 실수가 될 것이라고 경고했다. 이스라엘이 독단적으로 이란을 공격해도 이슬람 사람들은 미국이 시켰다고 볼 것이다. 군사적 조치를 취해도 이스라엘은 미국처럼 깨끗하게 마무리할 실력이 없어 부작용이 더 커진다. 페리씨는 이스라엘의 이란 공격은 최악의 선택이라고 걱정했다.

페리씨는 부시 행정부의 이 두 나라에 대한 정책은 완전한 실패(total failure)이므로 새로운 전략을 고안해야 한다고 주장했다. 두 나라에 대한 정권교체 전략을 포기하는 대신에 직접 대화를 시작하고 유엔헌장의 제7조 봉쇄 조항을 채택하도록 관련국을 설득하여야 한다는 것이다.

미국의 안보전문가들 이야기를 들어보면 그들이 가장 걱정하는 것은, 이란과 북한이 만든 핵폭탄과 핵물질이 테러집단에 넘어가 이것이 미국 영토로 반입되어 어느 도시 전체를 파괴하게 되는 핵테러의 가능성이다. 그들은 특히 북한의 경우 과거 행태로 보아서 돈을 많이 주겠다고 한다면 핵폭탄이라고 테러집단에 팔 가능성이 매우 높다고 보고 있다.

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* 윌리엄 J. 페리 전 국방장관의 연설 原文(2006년5월24일)

Center for National Policy - http://www.cnponline.org/ - With/without introduction - With/without body
Iran, North Korea And The Challenges Of Proliferation
A CNP Distinguished Speaker Event With Former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry

A CNP Distinguished Speaker Event With Former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry

May 24, 2006

Summary

Former Defense Secretary Perry addressed a crowded CNP-hosted event at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill. Speaking on the Iranian nuclear enrichment program, Secretary Perry called on the Bush administration to participate actively in negotiations with Tehran뾧ust a week before the Bush administration announced its intention to do just that. 'It seems clear that the only hope of getting anything going in those negotiations is to have the U.S. join in direct talks with Iran,' he said.?'Whether those talks were bilateral or whether they were part of a larger forum seems to me not so important as that they get going and they be direct.'



Transcript

Tim Roemer: I work at the Center for National Policy, and I am delighted and very honored to have our speaker, former Secretary of Defense William Perry, join us today to talk with us on a crucially important subject for the United States and for the world.

I am reminded of something that Mark Twain once said. He said: 밫he difference between picking the right word and almost the right word is like the difference between lightening and a lightening bug.?There is a very big difference between the words we choose and how powerful they can be and a big difference in who we get to speak on different issues.?I don뭪 think we could have picked a more perfect speaker for today뭩 subject matter.?

Before I introduce the Secretary of Defense, I want to recognize a few people and also thank a few people.?Our chairman of the board of the Center for National Policy, Peter Kovler joins us.?Peter, thank you for joining with us.?Also, a distinguished board member, John Freidenrich from Paulo Alto, California, from the University of Stanford, where Secretary Perry also works, joins with us.?And David Geanacopoulos, another board member joins with us today.젨 I also want to thank the Center for National Policy staff, that worked so hard, not just getting ready for an event of this priority and importance, but also the work they do all year long.?I want to recognize the staff for the Center for National Policy, if you would all raise your hands and be recognized. Joy, and Patrick and several others, you do an outstanding job for the Center.?

There are many reasons why Bill Perry is the perfect speaker today.?Great success in academia, great success in business efforts, and a great public servant.?But the hallmarks of his public service as the Secretary of Defense really are threefold.?One, as we deal with issues today in 2006, Secretary Perry dealt with one back in 1994 with a country called North Korea.?His containment policy worked effectively there.?Now in 2006 we have a very different problem that the Secretary will probably address.?Secondly, we had a problem with the dictator that was deposed in Bosnia and with nation building.?The Secretary served very capably and very ably to bring the proper amount of troops in for guerilla warfare or paramilitary operations and we now have peace in Bosnia.?Thirdly and maybe one of the highest accolades that you can get in public service, especially in the Department of Defense was from General Shalikashvili who said in a ceremony in 1997 when Bill Perry was ready to leave his public service.?밫his man is the GI뭩 Secretary of Defense??And when asked what was his most distinguished part of his three years in service, he didn뭪 talk about Bosnia, he didn뭪 talk about North Korea, he didn뭪 talk about a weapons program. He said: 밒t is the strong bond I have with the men and women in uniform today.?/p>

We are very delighted and honored to have such a distinguished public servant, such a successful Secretary of Defense, who brought peace and stability, used military warfare but also used diplomacy in his job.?Please honor him and welcome him, Bill Perry.?Thank you very much.

Secretary William J. Perry: Thank you for that wonderful introduction.?My interest in North Korea and Iran stem primarily from my concern that a nuclear bomb will go off in an American city set off by a terrorist.?I believe that nuclear terrorism is the greatest danger that our country faces today.?I am not alone in that belief.?In the presidential race both George W. Bush and John Kerry stated that they believe that nuclear terrorism is the greatest danger that we face.?In spite of that, The Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, in evaluating our performance in preventing nuclear terrorism, gave us at best a 밆?젨 A 밆뵕when I was a professor in Stanford, and I give somebody a 밆뵕I뭢 not immensely impressed with him.?

Graham Allison, in his seminal book, Nuclear Terrorism, said he believed there was a probability ?50/50 probability ?that a nuclear bomb would be set off within one of our cities within the decade. Now, I understand that it is really impossible to put a quantitative estimate on a complex phenomenon like that, but my impression from what I know is that Graham Allison is too optimistic.?I think if it happens it could happen sooner than that.?

There is however some good news here.?The good news is that the terrorists really cannot make nuclear reactors or a nuclear bomb. They would have to either steal or buy the nuclear weapons or at the minimum the fissile material from which a nuclear weapon can be made. And therefore many of our programs to prevent this from happening are based on keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of the terrorists.?During my time as Secretary, I suppose my top priority was addressed directly to that concern. I spent about a third of my time looking directly at ways of preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons and material. Primary to why I뭭e been doing that was the nuclear reduction program. And as a result of that program, we were able to dismantle almost 10,000 nuclear weapons, half in former Soviet Union and half in the United States, and to provide stronger security for the remaining weapons.?

That program is still unfinished, and should have a higher priority these days than it does have.?But by and large the nuclear reduction program is an effective way of dealing with the danger of spreading nuclear weapons to terrorists in countries of the former Soviet Union.?It does not, however, deal with emerging nuclear powers.?There is no comparable program.?Therefore, I see that the greatest risk today of a terrorist getting a nuclear bomb comes from three different countries: Pakistan, North Korea, and Iraq.?In Pakistan, we뭭e already had a leakage of nuclear materials and technology to the Khan network.?That has however been contained, and I think in all probability, that problem has been resolved.

In Iran we have to be concerned not only with the leakage to a terror group but even possibly a sanctioned leak.?In North Korea, I think the problem could be different it뭩 not a leakage of technology but the possibility that it actually sells a bomb or some materials to a terror group given their desperate economic situation.?The danger of an emerging nuclear power is magnified many times, however, by the domino effect that would occur if either Iran or North Korea became full-fledged nuclear powers.?You can see an arms race in the Far East, an arms race in the Middle East, in countries like Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, going nuclear.?So there are many ways we could fail in this regard. As a price of failure, I say again, the price of failure is that there might be a nuclear bomb detonated in an American city. Hundreds of thousands of people would be killed.?There would be hundreds of billions of dollars of direct damage and incalculable indirect economic effects.?An economic panic would result after such an attack.?And there would be incalculable political and social damage.?

You could give a whole talk on just calculating what would happen in this country after a nuclear bomb went off in Washington or New York City.?I will sum it up simply by saying it would be the worst single catastrophe in American history.?Therefore, prevention of the spread of nuclear weapons should be our number one security priority.?And yet the efforts to prevent the spread have been ineffective.?North Korea has built already a nuclear arsenal.?It continues to build it.?And Iran is on the threshold.?The failure of our efforts to stop proliferation today has been so profound, so obvious that we are now looking for alternatives that are different from the ways of the past.

There are three generic alternatives that the president can pursue.?The first is to revise our diplomacy, in particular, to revise it to include direct talks, and to revise it to establish a more effective coercive means.?I have more to say about that.?The second alternative is simply to take out the threatening nuclear facilities with military strikes.?I have more to say about that.?And the third is learn to live with it.?That is to understand what it takes to make the necessary security adjustments.?I have more to say about that.?I뭢 going to do this by starting out talking about these two countries. First North Korea and then Iran.?

In North Korea, our head diplomat started off four or five years ago saying that we would not make or conduct direct talks with North Korea. For more than a year and a half there has been a stalemate with no talking with North Korea continuing to improve and build nuclear material facilities.?Then, with the encouragement of China, we participated in so called 뱒ix-party talks.뵠 But we participated for almost two years with no real dialogue.?Our representative would go to the meetings stand up, read a statement, and sit down and that was it.?So I want to draw a distinction between attending talks and truly participating in dialogue in the talks.?Finally, last September there was a six-party talk with real dialogue.?Ambassador Chris Hill engaged with the North Koreans, he made serious and substantive proposals and they came to an understanding.?That뭩 the good news.?The bad news is that the day after that understanding was announced, first Washington and then Pyongyang walked back on that dialogue.?Basically there seemed to have been a misunderstanding about the understanding. There have been no talks since then.

North Korea has stated they would not come back to the table.?The question then is can we change the formula, can we add some element to it so that we can get those talks going in a positive direction and resolve the issues that have kept us apart.?I cannot be too hopeful about that.?There are very important economic incentives, both negative and positive that could be used, but nearly all of them with any substance are in the hands of either China or South Korea. And neither of those nations has shown any intention to use those incentives, either positive or negative.?Within the U.S. government, in my judgment, there is a schism between those who believe we should engage Korea and those who believe that the only way of dealing with a regime that bad is regime change.?So there are these two very different points of view.?

That takes me to the second alternative, which is taking out the nuclear facilities, there is one practical reason I don뭪 favor that alternative, which is the plutonium is now gone from Pyongyang. We could take out the reactor that sits there, we could take out the processor that sits there, but the plutonium and probably the bombs from which they are making from the plutonium have gone somewhere, and we don뭪 know where.?So we could not take out the bombs.?And second, and this has been a consideration that we had back in 1994, even when the plutonium could have been destroyed, which is that such a strike would very likely lead to a second Korean war, a war that probably would have even higher casualties than the first Korean War.?Additionally, there뭩 a question as to whether that뭩 even feasible. A war with North Korea would inevitably involve South Korea and it is not saying it too strongly to say that the South Korean government is adamantly opposed to a war.?

So that brings me of course to the third alternative, which is to learn to live with the problem and make the necessary security adjustments.?What security adjustments would we make??If I was the Secretary of Defense and had to live with nuclear weapons in North Korea, what would I be looking at??Well first of all, you뭗 look at the possibility of defending against them.?You뭗 have an effort to enhance the nuclear defense system in Alaska.?But even if it were to perform exactly according to specifications, it simply would not fill the bill. The problem is that North Korea could sell the bomb to somebody else who would put the missile on a truck or freighter.?We also have a program called PSI, Proliferation Security Initiative, designed to prevent the provision of nuclear technology or material to North Korea and any nation.?I guess the only thing I could say about that is that I am in favor of that, the Proliferation of Security Initiative.?But I believe that to stop the North Koreans from transferring nuclear bombs to anyone and to prevent the transfer of amounts of plutonium of that size necessary to make a bomb is truly a faith based initiative. (Laughter).?

And finally, the forces that deter which served us so well all those years of the Cold War.?I believe that North Korea is indeed deterred from the path of attacking the United States by our overwhelming military power.?But again the problem is that even if they don뭪 attack us, they뭨e just going to sell the bombs to somebody else. We can of course threaten retaliation against North Korea if a bomb goes off in our cities. But there is a very real question as to whether we can identify whether that bomb came from North Korea or someplace else.?So there뭩 a question of whether deterrence is feasible. On the subject of the forensics of nuclear identification, it has been described as needing much more work. I뭢 not only talking about the red tape. Only to simply say that there is reason to doubt, at least under present conditions, that we are secure.?In sum, on North Korea, we have dug a very deep hole, and there are no attractive alternatives left.?

Let me shift to Iran.?On Monday this week, Ash Carter and I held a workshop on the Iranian nuclear program.?And there, the assembled experts, after a day of discussions, came to the very strong conclusion, that we had also dug ourselves into a very deep hole in Iran with no attractive alternatives left.?The negotiations that have been ongoing between the EU-3 and Iran and Russia and Iran are clearly dead.?So the first thing we looked at is what could be done to strengthen those negotiations??It seemed clear that the hope for these U.N.-led negotiations is that we could have the U.S., Jordan, and Iraq talk with Iran.?Whether those talks were bilateral, or whether they were part of the larger forum seemed to be not so important as perhaps to get them going and that they be direct.?You can imagine another six-party talk with the United States, the European community, Russia and maybe China, joined with Iran.?You can imagine many different ways of shaping and forming the table, but the indispensable condition is that the United States be sitting at that table, and not just sitting like they did when there was the first set of talks, but actively participating in the dialogue.?This is, I believe, a necessary condition for success.?

Iran뭩 desire for nuclear weapons is long lasting and deep.?And I think it뭩 going to take considerable deterrence to move them away from that ambition.?I think the negotiations are still going to require some degree of coercion.?The most obvious way of manifesting that coercion is by taking Iran to the Security Council and getting an Article 7 sanction and with that sanction putting political and economic pressure on Iran to change course.?To provide some disincentives for the nuclear weapon program, you could counterbalance incentives that they already have.?But there are real barriers to getting an Article 7 sanction from the U.N.?First and most fundamentally, both Russia and China, who obviously would have to agree to this, believe that an Article 7 sanction against Iran would simply be used by the United States to go from there to military action and therefore they뭨e very reluctant for that reason to do that.?Secondly, without putting too fine a point on it, if this requires the cooperation of Russia, Russia뭩 not in a very happy mood with the United States today, not the least of which because of the speech that Vice President Cheney gave in Lithuania a week ago.?So there are reasons to believe that it뭩 going to be very difficult to get that Article 7 sanction from the U.N.?But we should proceed anyway.

But I must say that even if we did that, given these considerable incentives that Iran has for going nuclear, that leads to the consideration that what if any out there surface.?It is difficult to do that, but probably doable in some sense.?In the sense that if the United States, if they made that strike, could undoubtedly setback the program for a length of several years.?But I want to be very clear; it would not be a simple surgical strike.?It would probably need to be repeated and it would probably in effect be the beginning of a long war.?A war which has global implications.?In short, I think the unintended consequences of that strike would be horrific.?I could spend the whole time talking about the arguments and capitalizing on what I think are probably undesirable consequences.?Well, can we simply say, Iran is going nuclear, get over it.?In which case we would begin the strategic adjustments, the kind I was talking about with North Korea.?Again, nuclear defense comes to people뭩 mind, in fact in the last week we were reading the paper about the United States proposing a nuclear defense system in Europe to defend against that stuff.

Again, I say the primary threat is not one of Iran putting the nuclear weapon on a missile and firing it at us or at anybody else.?The primary threat is that the weapons or the technology or the fissile material would lead to terrorists and the bombs would end up in our cities or European cities via truck and not via missile. While saying that I am in favor of the Proliferation Security Initiative, I would have no faith in it as an answer to this problem. I have the same problem about deterring them.?I think Iran is quite deterrable from firing a nuclear missile at Germany or at the United States.?But I don뭪 know how to deter the terrorists.?I have the same problem with identifying who are they.?So they are essentially the same generic problems which I listed in regards to North Korea, but there is one important difference.?There is a new problem here, which I think is unique to Iran that does not exist with North Korea.?Even if the United States decides to accept a nuclear Iran, what assurance do we have that Israel would accept that same conclusion.?I think that there is every possibility that Israel could independently decide to take a pre-emptive attack if they see that we have decided to accept it.?Some people in this town have talked approvingly of that, saying oh that뭩 fine, Israel is going to pull our chestnuts out of the fire.?I have issue with that statement.?If Israel conducts that strike, everyone in the Arab world and the Muslim world will believe that the United States is implicated, even if that is not validated.?Finally, Israel cannot do as effective a job as the United States could do.?So I would see an Israeli attack would be the worst of all worlds and I strongly recommend against either encouraging or even admitting it if we were able to stop it.?

Well, I뭢 going to sum up comments both on Iran and North Korea.?The mistakes are enormous.?Our diplomacy has been a total failure.?As a result the situation has deteriorated to such a point that no attractive alternative is available to us.?The least bad alternative is engaging with our allies in direct talks and try to create a course of pressures. In order to create a course of pressures we require an Article 7 sanction from the U.N. and I think probably to get that, the United States has to take regime change off the table.?That뭩 why our allies are holding back.?Not only do they not favor that action, they find it to be immensely counterproductive.?So I would favor moving forward with direct talks, taking regime change off the table, creating the conditions for more force in developments at the talks, and considering the alternatives only after a long and serious effort has been made.