美国国家公共电台 NPR Experts Say Denuclearizing North Korea Is No Small Task

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: 

As a possible summit approaches between President Trump¹ and North Korea's leader, a poem that kids learn in school comes to mind. The poem says, in its entirety, so much depends upon a red wheelbarrow glazed² with rainwater beside the white chickens. For North Korea, we just have to revise this poem a bit. So much depends upon the meaning of a single word that is relatively³ hard to pronounce, denuclearization. Not very poetic⁴ but for the United States, that word means North Korea surrendering its entire nuclear program quickly.

Those who know that program say quickly could mean years. Here's NPR's David Welna.

DAVID WELNA, BYLINE⁵: What President Trump would like from a Singapore summit, as his National Security Adviser⁶ John Bolton told Fox News, is nothing less than this.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

JOHN BOLTON: The complete verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of North Korea.

WELNA: Trump himself has allowed that may not be done in one fell swoop⁷.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It would certainly be better if it were all in one. Does it have to be? I don't think I want to totally commit myself, but all in one would be a lot better.

WELNA: Lindsey Ford⁸ says all in one is simply a fantasy. A former senior Asia adviser at the Pentagon who's now with the Asia Society, Ford says even if North Korea were willing to denuclearize, which she doubts is the case, it would take years.

LINDSEY FORD: If you look back at the nuclear negotiations⁹ that we had with Iran and how long that took and how many times that almost fell apart, and Iran was not anywhere nearly as far along as where North Korea is, it gives you a sense of the degree of difficulty actually trying to roll back a nuclear program.

WELNA: Joel Wit's actually been there and tried doing that. He was State Department coordinator¹⁰ for the Clinton administration's effort to unwind North Korea's nuclear program. Step one for any denuclearization now, Wit says, would be...

JOEL WIT: The weapons themselves, the materials associated with the weapons, which can be the actual nuclear material in the weapons, and their non-nuclear components¹¹, all of that has to leave North Korea.

WELNA: But only North Korea knows for sure how many weapons are there and where they're kept. Stanford nuclear weapons expert Siegfried Hecker is the last American scientist to have seen North Korea's nuclear facilities from the inside.

SIEGFRIED HECKER: I have great confidence that we have a good idea as to how much plutonium they could have produced and that they have today. And that range is in 20 to 40 kilograms. And it takes on the order of maybe five or six kilograms to make a bomb.

WELNA: That would only account for at the most eight nuclear weapons. Hecker, speaking via Skype, says his best guess based on other evidence is that North Korea has at least 25 in its arsenal¹².

HECKER: Could they have an overall bomb program that's 10 times as large? No. Could they have one that's twice as large as what we think? The answer is possibly.

WELNA: Beyond those bombs, says Joel Wit, there's also...

WIT: The infrastructure¹³ associated with the production of nuclear weapons and research and development. All that would have to be identified and eventually dismantled¹⁴.

WELNA: Identifying it could be a real challenge. Stanford's Hecker recalls that during his last visit to North Korea eight years ago, his host made a point of taking him inside a previously¹⁵ unknown uranium enrichment facility.

HECKER: We've done it in a building, you guys had no idea that we were doing it in this building. There may be other buildings like that. Now, they didn't say it that way but that was certainly my sense. They have other buildings and we don't know where they are.

WELNA: Terry Roehrig of the U.S. Naval¹⁶ War College says his own view is that North Korea could simply hide what it wants to keep.

TERRY ROEHRIG: The North Koreans are very good at tunneling and putting things below ground, a lesson they learned from the Korean War when they were bombed heavily. So they have buried a lot of facilities.

WELNA: And it's not just those facilities that matter, says the Asia Society's Ford.

FORD: There are going to be folks still in North Korea who know and could restart this type of program covertly¹⁷ if they wanted to.

WELNA: Removing that nuclear brain trust from North Korea, says former diplomat¹⁸ Wit, quite simply, is not an option.

WIT: You can't be absurd and ask for 10,000 scientists to be shipped out. You could ask for them to be redirected into civilian¹⁹ work and have some assurance that that's working by having an on-the-ground presence to make sure that's what they're doing.

WELNA: Stanford's Hecker says even if North Korea agrees to abandon its nuclear program, that would be an enormous undertaking²⁰.

HECKER: Considering the fact that it's taken at least 25 years to really put this nuclear arsenal in place, the thought of turning it around and denuclearizing, so to speak, in a short period of time of a year or two is simply not possible.

WELNA: In a just-published report, Hecker estimates it could take a decade to denuclearize North Korea. David Welna, NPR News, Washington.

1 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

2 glazed   

adj.光滑的，像玻璃的；上过釉的；呆滞无神的v.装玻璃( glaze的过去式)；上釉于，上光；（目光）变得呆滞无神

参考例句：

• eyes glazed with boredom 厌倦无神的眼睛
• His eyes glazed over at the sight of her. 看到她时，他的目光就变得呆滞。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

4 poetic   

adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的

参考例句：

• His poetic idiom is stamped with expressions describing group feeling and thought.他的诗中的措辞往往带有描写群体感情和思想的印记。
• His poetic novels have gone through three different historical stages.他的诗情小说创作经历了三个不同的历史阶段。

5 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

6 adviser   

n.劝告者，顾问

参考例句：

• They employed me as an adviser.他们聘请我当顾问。
• Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。

7 swoop   

n.俯冲，攫取；v.抓取，突然袭击

参考例句：

• The plane made a swoop over the city.那架飞机突然向这座城市猛降下来。
• We decided to swoop down upon the enemy there.我们决定突袭驻在那里的敌人。

8 Ford   

n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过

参考例句：

• They were guarding the bridge,so we forded the river.他们驻守在那座桥上，所以我们只能涉水过河。
• If you decide to ford a stream,be extremely careful.如果已决定要涉过小溪，必须极度小心。

9 negotiations   

协商( negotiation的名词复数 )； 谈判； 完成（难事）； 通过

参考例句：

• negotiations for a durable peace 为持久和平而进行的谈判
• Negotiations have failed to establish any middle ground. 谈判未能达成任何妥协。

10 coordinator   

n.协调人

参考例句：

• The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, headed by the Emergency Relief Coordinator, coordinates all UN emergency relief. 联合国人道主义事务协调厅在紧急救济协调员领导下，负责协调联合国的所有紧急救济工作。
• How am I supposed to find the client-relations coordinator? 我怎么才能找到客户关系协调员的办公室？

11 components   

（机器、设备等的）构成要素，零件，成分； 成分( component的名词复数 )； [物理化学]组分； [数学]分量； （混合物的）组成部分

参考例句：

• the components of a machine 机器部件
• Our chemistry teacher often reduces a compound to its components in lab. 在实验室中化学老师常把化合物分解为各种成分。

12 arsenal   

n.兵工厂，军械库

参考例句：

• Even the workers at the arsenal have got a secret organization.兵工厂工人暗中也有组织。
• We must be the great arsenal of democracy.我们必须成为民主的大军火库。

13 infrastructure   

n.下部构造，下部组织，基础结构，基础设施

参考例句：

• We should step up the development of infrastructure for research.加强科学基础设施建设。
• We should strengthen cultural infrastructure and boost various types of popular culture.加强文化基础设施建设，发展各类群众文化。

14 dismantled   

拆开( dismantle的过去式和过去分词 )； 拆卸； 废除； 取消

参考例句：

• The plant was dismantled of all its equipment and furniture. 这家工厂的设备和家具全被拆除了。
• The Japanese empire was quickly dismantled. 日本帝国很快被打垮了。

15 previously   

adv.以前，先前（地）

参考例句：

• The bicycle tyre blew out at a previously damaged point.自行车胎在以前损坏过的地方又爆开了。
• Let me digress for a moment and explain what had happened previously.让我岔开一会儿，解释原先发生了什么。

16 naval   

adj.海军的，军舰的，船的

参考例句：

• He took part in a great naval battle.他参加了一次大海战。
• The harbour is an important naval base.该港是一个重要的海军基地。

17 covertly   

adv.偷偷摸摸地

参考例句：

• Naval organizations were covertly incorporated into civil ministries. 各种海军组织秘密地混合在各民政机关之中。 来自辞典例句
• Modern terrorism is noteworthy today in that it is being done covertly. 现代的恐怖活动在今天是值得注意的，由于它是秘密进行的。 来自互联网

18 diplomat   

n.外交官，外交家；能交际的人，圆滑的人

参考例句：

• The diplomat threw in a joke, and the tension was instantly relieved.那位外交官插进一个笑话，紧张的气氛顿时缓和下来。
• He served as a diplomat in Russia before the war.战前他在俄罗斯当外交官。

19 civilian   

adj.平民的，民用的，民众的

参考例句：

• There is no reliable information about civilian casualties.关于平民的伤亡还没有确凿的信息。
• He resigned his commission to take up a civilian job.他辞去军职而从事平民工作。

20 undertaking   

n.保证，许诺，事业

参考例句：

• He gave her an undertaking that he would pay the money back with in a year.他向她做了一年内还钱的保证。
• He is too timid to venture upon an undertaking.他太胆小，不敢从事任何事业。