The Daily - Diplomacy and Deception From North Korea

Episode Date: November 13, 2018

President Trump says the nuclear threat from North Korea is over. But new satellite images of hidden missile bases suggest that the situation has only worsened since his meeting with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader. Guest: David E. Sanger, a national security correspondent for The New York Times and the author of “The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age.” For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today. President Trump says the nuclear threat from North Korea is over. New reporting by The Times suggests the situation has only worsened since his summit meeting with Kim Jong-un back in June. It's Tuesday, November 13th. A few months ago, North Korean experts at a think tank in Washington started asking

themselves the question, what else could the North Koreans have out there? David Sanger is a national security correspondent for The Times. There are a lot of nuclear sites that we've known about in North Korea for a long time. There are a lot that have been rumored. But the big question is, what do the North Koreans really have? And is it changing? So at the think tank, a man named Victor Cha began to think about a project to go figure out where all of the North's nuclear and missile facilities were.

They began to assemble very detailed satellite photographs and compare those to every report they've had over the past 30, 35 years of possible North Korean facilities. These came from defectors. Sometimes they came from previous, older, not very good satellite photographs. And they moved methodically across the country, quadrant by quadrant, looking for the telltale signs of missile bases. Usually you can see tunnel entrances on the sides of mountains. You can see special driveways that are large enough to carry these enormous mobile launchers where a missile is pulled out of a tunnel in the mountain and driven out to a road and can be set up to be launched.

They see certain kinds of outbuildings. And they were just looking for the patterns to find out how many of these there were. So what did they find? Michael, what they found were 16 different sites, each one of them with those telltale tunnel entrances, the outbuildings, everything that you would need in order to have a well-protected missile site. And one of those sites looked like it was being upgraded to house missiles that were designed to reach the United States. Now, we don't know if the North Koreans actually can deliver a nuclear weapon

on Los Angeles or Washington or New York, but certainly they're working in that direction. And David, when you say upgraded, what does that mean when it comes to a missile site? Well, it can mean any of a number of things. It can mean that the outbuildings are getting more sophisticated. It can mean that they're building better roads and other facilities just outside the tunnels so that they can rapidly deploy the missile, set it up, and set it to launch right away. In the North Korean view, speed is of the essence. The faster they could bring a mobile missile launcher out and set it up, the less time the United States would have to conduct a preemptive strike. And what does it mean that all these missile bases have been discovered in this moment? a great deception may be going on, or at least a pretty sophisticated shell game in which the

North Koreans are declaring that they are complying with that agreement that they struck with President Trump in Singapore five months ago, when in fact what they're doing is improving or rebuilding facilities faster than they are dismantling a few old ones. And take me back to that agreement. What was the expectation of what North Korea would do? There's the president of the United States stepping out, waving as he lands in Singapore ahead of this historic summit with Kim Jong-un. Well, remember, Michael, this was June 12th in Singapore, and the entire city came to a complete stop. Probably the biggest diplomatic event for North Korea in a very long time, since the Korean War maybe.

Because here you had the first meeting between an American president and one of North Korea's dictators. An enormous test of the president of the United States and his ability to motivate and to negotiate. Donald Trump had done something no other president had ever done, which was agree to sit down with a North Korean leader one-on-one. He didn't feel that he needed to prepare because he said he had been preparing all his life for this.

That is what worries people. The president is going to go and sit down, and he doesn't have a concrete list of what he wants to walk away with. And he announced that he was doing it because he was such a great negotiator that he knew that he could reach an agreement himself. How long do you think it would take you to figure out whether he's serious about giving up?

It's a good question. How long would it take? I think within the first minute, I'll know. How? Just my touch, my feel. That's what I do. And frankly, it made a lot of sense, Michael, I'll know. How? Just my touch, my feel. That's what I do. And frankly, it made a lot of sense, Michael, because for years we have been arguing with the North Koreans but not talking to the right person. You know the way they say that you know if you're going to like somebody

in the first five seconds? You ever hear that one? Well, I think that very quickly I'll know whether or not something good is going to happen. You know, North Korea is run by a single dictator, and if the agreement wasn't with the dictator but with his minions, it didn't mean much. So the president had the right thought, and when they finally met... So we're signing a very important document. They agreed on a piece of paper that laid out in very vague terms what each country would go do.

And we've had a really great term together, a great relationship. And the problem with it was it wasn't a very specific document. And the problem with it was it wasn't a very specific document. And so everybody emerged from this thinking it said something slightly different. I would like to express my gratitude to President Trump to make this meeting happen. Thank you. Thank you very much. What did the North Koreans think they had agreed to? So the North Koreans thought that they had agreed to the United States reducing the level of tensions, formally declaring an end of the

Korean War. They thought that the United States would agree to begin over time lifting the sanctions and the embargoes on North Korea, building up trust. And then ultimately, that would reduce the need for them to have nuclear weapons to defend themselves. The United States thought they had agreed to something in just the opposite order, that the North Koreans would denuclearize, they would get rid of their missiles. And when that was all done, and only when that was all done, would the sanctions begin to go away and would North Korea be treated like a normal nation? So they almost had mirror images of this agreement. And it was such a rushed job because both Kim Jong-un and President Trump wanted to get this meeting going for their own reasons, have the photo op,

that no one really sorted out the question of in what order would each of these steps come? What would have to happen before the next thing happened? Our unprecedented meeting, the first between an American president and a leader of North Korea, proves that real change is indeed possible. My meeting with Chairman Kim was honest, direct, and productive. We got to know each other well in a very confined period of time under very strong, strong circumstance. So they signed the same agreement, David, but took entirely different meanings from it.

That's exactly right. It's really hard to fathom two countries agreeing to something so fundamentally different. I mean, the word agreement doesn't even seem to apply to this. That's right. And it was an incredibly poorly, sloppily written document. And it was sloppily written precisely because both sides knew that the more specific it got, the less likely it was either side could agree to it. And did this agreement, however vague, have any timeline? It had no timeline in it, and that was one of its several flaws. It did not create a time pressure.

And then President Trump did something that in many ways took the pressure off the North Koreans. He got out of Singapore. And as he landed in the United States, he reached for his phone and he tweeted. Just landed a long trip, but everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office. Goes on to say that there is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea. And he says that the meeting with Kim Jong-un was very interesting and very positive. And he was tweeting an emotion, as one of his aides later said to me. He felt like because they had a pretty good rapport, because they could get along as sort of business partners, that that's what the threat was all about. And part of the threat is about an intent. He didn't

think that Kim Jong-un was about to go attack the United States, and therefore we didn't have a threat. But the fact of the matter is that the nuclear infrastructure in North Korea was exactly the same the day after they met in Singapore as it was the day before. So five months later, what from that agreement has actually been accomplished on both sides? Almost nothing. Think of it. We got our hostages back. We got our hostages back. The president talks about the fact that North Korea returned some hostages. And we have a good relationship with Kim Jong-un. We have a great relationship with Chairman Kim, and we feel good about it.

It's wonderful they got out. It has nothing to do with the nuclear program, right? The North Koreans said they would dismantle some facilities. They haven't finished dismantling them. They said they would allow in inspectors. It may happen, but it hasn't happened yet. And they never committed to, and President Trump never insisted upon, the most fundamental part of any one of these agreements, which is a nuclear freeze and a missile freeze,

so that while the agreement was playing out, the North Koreans would have to demonstrate that they are no longer making nuclear fuel, making nuclear weapons, and making new missiles or improving these missile sites. If there had been a freeze as a first step, then you'd say, OK, then you've got time because the situation isn't getting worse. But President Trump couldn't get that. Meanwhile, the North Koreans say, hey, what about that peace agreement that President Trump said that he would be perfectly willing to go along and sign? And the U.S. has said, we're not doing a peace agreement

until we're beginning to go down the road to denuclearization. And so as a result, the United States and North Korea are at great loggerheads. David, what you've laid out does not at all sound like meaningful progress from either side. But that is not how President Trump has described the state of these negotiations. It certainly isn't how the president has described it because he's only told Americans half the story. They're destroying their engine site. They're blowing it up. They're destroying their engine site. They're blowing it up.

They've already blown up one of their big test sites. He has touted the fact that the North Koreans have taken apart at least one big missile test facility. In fact, it was actually four of their big test sites. And the big thing is it will be a total denuclearization, which is already starting taking place. They've made a big deal of the fact that the North Koreans blew up the entrances to one of their big nuclear test sites. But the relationship that Mike has and I have with Chairman Kim and his group is a very good one, very strong one, and I think it's going to lead to tremendous success.

But the document we signed... These are all described to Americans in an effort by President Trump to make the case that his diplomacy with Kim Jong-un is working, and the North Koreans, bit by bit, grudgingly, slowly, are moving toward denuclearization. When you look at the bigger picture, when you open up that satellite aperture

and really look across the country, what you discover is they're closing down a few sites to make President Trump happy, and they're expanding many others. We'll be right back. So to that point, David, I have to imagine that in doing this reporting, you went to the Trump administration and said, we have discovered evidence of these 16 secret bases where missiles are being developed,

missiles that could potentially reach, hurt the U.S. and its allies. And I wonder, given what you've just said, what the reaction from the Trump White House was when you did that. Well, you know, with this White House, frequently the reaction is no reaction, right? I did go to them and I went to both the State Department and the intelligence agencies and described this. And in off-the-record conversations, people said to them, and I went to both the State Department and the intelligence agencies and described this. And in off-the-record conversations, people said to me, look, there are no facilities in this unclassified report that we don't already know about. Of course we've seen all these. North Korea is the most studied piece of real estate on earth.

It's mapped by everybody. So they weren't surprised by this. They were just uncomfortable that all this was becoming clear because of good analysis of unclassified commercial photography. So their greatest discomfort was the fact that you were going to alert the public, not necessarily that these 16 bases exist. They've known about these bases for a long time, and presumably they've known about the improvements.

They wouldn't discuss the bases with me because they look at them through classified satellite imagery. So they say we can't discuss it as classified. David, when it comes to the U.S. essentially keeping these kinds of bases in North Korea hidden until you unearth them. I guess I'm kind of confused about why the Trump administration feels it's in America's best interest to proclaim that these negotiations with North Korea are going well, when in fact,

based on everything that you have told us, they are in fact going in the opposite direction of what we want. They're not just not going well, they're going in reverse and quite poorly. Why wouldn't the White House just want to fess up about that fact? Because it's wrapped up in the president's own image of himself as the world's greatest negotiator, the man who can reach out and sit down with another leader, in this case, a dictator, an incredibly brutal leader who has got gulags full of dissidents back in his country, but that the president feels like the only thing that makes a difference is the deal that he personally can strike. And the thought that kept playing out in the back of my mind was this. Are the North Koreans

really deceiving us? Because after all, American intelligence agencies know about every one of these facilities. Or are we deceiving ourselves? Or is the Trump administration deceiving itself, ignoring the evidence of what's going on elsewhere in the country in its quest to prove that its singular diplomacy with the North has been successful? And maybe it will be successful, Michael, and we all certainly hope it will be. But the early evidence suggests that this administration doesn't want to hear about contrary intelligence that suggests the North Koreans are playing a giant shell game with them. And David, what is your conclusion? Who is deceiving whom here?

In this agreement, Michael, I think everyone's deceiving everyone else. The North Koreans are deceiving us about what kind of facilities they're secretly keeping going even while they dismantle some. The Americans are deceiving themselves about how quickly and how sincerely the North Koreans will go about denuclearization because they're intent on showing that the president's one-on-one diplomacy worked. because they're intent on showing that the president's one-on-one diplomacy worked. And the rest of the world may be averting its eyes from both the truth of what's happening in North Korea and what the administration is saying about it, because they fear going back to the summer of 2017,

when President Trump was still talking about fire and fury like the world has never seen and seemed about to attack the North Koreans. So what is the U.S. doing or planning to do about those 16 missile bases that the North Korean experts discovered and that you reported? Does the U.S. have any plan to try to force North Korea to dismantle these? Well, you know, Michael, one of the problems that President Trump is facing right now is that the way that he handled these negotiations, declaring success after the first meeting, is that his leverage is crumbling. The sanctions that the United States built up over

the years have begun to disappear because the Russians and the Chinese say there's a new and better tone. And even the South Koreans have broken away from the United States on the question of how much they should deal with North Korea. So the president's lost a huge amount of his economic leverage. And what makes the problem even harder, Michael, is that the U.S. doesn't have very good constant eyes on the North Korean missile program. We have these big $5 billion satellites that only pass over North Korea periodically. So if they rolled out one of these missiles from a launch site, you might not see it.

And because he appears to have done a 180-degree turn from the summer of 2017, people don't believe he's terribly eager to use military force either. And while it may be a very good thing he's not planning to go use military force, if you're the North Koreans, the pressure has suddenly come off after many, many years. So President Trump, in his effort to demonstrate that he's a skilled negotiator, has basically negotiated away his main points of leverage. And it's likely that despite whatever danger these bases may pose, North Korea will be allowed to maintain and improve them.

And there will be no repercussions. If I took the State Department statement literally, the North Koreans could keep the bases but would have to lose all the missiles that are on them. I don't think that's very likely to happen in the near future. And more importantly, neither do the North Koreans. David, thank you very much. Thanks, Michael. Great to be with you.

Here's what else you need to know today. This is truly a tragedy that all Californians can understand and respond to and be very sympathetic. The wildfires in both northern and southern California continue to rage, with strong winds whipping the fires across thousands of acres of forest and brush. As of Monday night, more than 200 people were unaccounted for in the northern town of Paradise, which was decimated by the campfire

that has killed at least 42 people, burned about 113,000 acres, and is only about 25% contained. In the south, the Woolsey Fire, west of Los Angeles, has killed two people, charred more than 90,000 acres in communities like Malibu, and is only 20% contained. The way I would describe it, I'm going to amend something I said before. This is not the new normal. This is the new abnormal. And this new abnormal will continue, certainly in the next 10 to 15 to 20 years. And unfortunately, the best science is telling us that dryness, warmth,

drought, all those things, they're going to intensify. So we have a real challenge here, threatening our whole way of life. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.