Another Rogue-State Smuggling Route Is Revealed

OPINION July 21, 2013, 7:41 p.m. ET

Another Rogue-State Smuggling Route Is Revealed
The U.S. is moving too slowly to investigate the North Korean freighter
stopped on its return from Cuba.
By John Bolton

Panama's interdiction last week of a North Korean freighter bearing
cargo from Cuba should open President Obama's eyes. The seizure's
chilling implication is that significant trading exists among
proliferators (and their powerful friends), despite mountains of
sanctions resolutions, vaunted intelligence capabilities, and Western
leaders who think dictators can be talked out of long-sought military
capabilities. Unfortunately, Mr. Obama is botching a real opportunity by
mistakenly deferring to the United Nations.

Much remains unknown about the shipment aboard the Chong Chon Gang, or
what it carried inbound to Cuba. The Havana-Pyongyang story that the
vessel was transporting obsolete weapons and equipment certainly
warrants considerable skepticism. But even if its cargo was just that
and nothing more, the mere fact of this newly revealed rogue-state trade
route is bad news. "Axis of evil" was never just a metaphor, and
membership is always open.

The freighter could well represent a pattern of trafficking in weapons
of mass destruction and their delivery systems, with Havana purchasing
Pyongyang's missiles, previously marketed to the Middle East and Africa,
and other dangerous weaponry. We have no idea how often North Korean
ships have made this passage, but last week obviously wasn't the first one.

So far, the North has detonated three nuclear devices, possesses
advanced chemical- and biological-weapons programs, and has long-range
ballistic-missile capabilities (orbiting a satellite last December).
Even under President Obama, America still labels Cuba a state sponsor of
terrorism, and Havana has long had at least a research-and-development
program in biological warfare. Even those who didn't experience the 1962
Cuban missile crisis should understand that ballistic missiles so close
to America, particularly when supplied by a WMD-armed state, raise
serious asymmetric risks.

The cargo of Cuban sugar concealing the military equipment constitutes
the cover story, but clandestine operations often employ several layers
of protection. Second-level cover often involves admitting facts no
longer plausibly deniable, but portraying them in ways that deflect
further investigation. When the United States engineered the 2003
interdiction of a ship conveying, along with legitimate cargo,
uranium-enrichment equipment for Libya's nuclear-weapons program,
Italian customs authorities discovered the contraband packed in crates
labeled "used auto parts." We shouldn't allow similar duplicity to work
here.

Start with careful scrutiny of that purportedly aged military equipment
on the Chong Chon Gang, supposedly en route to North Korea for repair
and return. Perhaps so, but experts have rightly asked why not bring
Pyongyang's technicians to Cuba, which would be both less expensive and
less risky. Perhaps the materials were being sold outright to North
Korea, for use or reverse engineering to develop more modern
capabilities. Or maybe the real payload is hidden within the junk.

And let's not forget those 200,000 bags of "sugar," which some
speculated could be Cuba's in-kind payment for the "repairs." Instead,
those sacks might contain illegal narcotics, as the initial tip to
Panama's authorities indicated, and which is consistent with Pyongyang's
well-known drug smuggling to earn hard currency. Or the sacks could
involve biological or chemical weapons materials. All it would take is
one bag out of 200,000 to risk major damage.

Beyond North Korea and Cuba, slipping through the interstices of the
world's enormous commercial networks is easily accomplished, as
drug-smuggling and money-laundering enterprises prove daily by land, sea
and air. It should be no surprise if conventional-arms traffickers and
WMD proliferators do the same. Such illicit trade wouldn't require
enormous volumes to pose potentially significant threats, and the
technology need not be highly sophisticated. For the Chong Chon Gang, it
meant simply turning off the ship's transponder at key points, thereby
masking it from international scrutiny, something aircraft can also do.

Moreover, this episode demonstrates that confidence in the efficacy of
international sanctions often is misplaced. On Iran's oil sales, for
example, widely reported official statistics showing declining export
volumes ignore the ways Tehran can sell oil off the books. These include
trucking oil through Iraq into Turkey, transferring oil to Iraq for
domestic consumption or export as "Iraqi" oil, or simply smuggling the
old-fashioned way under fake papers. If Cuba and North Korea are game,
surely Tehran's sophisticated oil traders are at least as creative.

As with the 2003 Libya interdiction, Panama's seizure of the Chong Chon
Gang was consistent with the Proliferation Security Initiative, launched
10 years ago to stop WMD trafficking. Although the initiative's work is
typically highly classified, its impact on proliferators is broadly
acknowledged. Unfortunately, President Obama is not moving swiftly to
investigate the suspect cargo. Instead he is giving way to the U.N. to
evaluate possible sanctions violations. U.N. inspectors won't even reach
Panama until August 5, very belatedly, and they will bring into the
picture North Korean and Cuban friends like China and Russia,
potentially hindering U.S. counter-proliferation efforts.

The fundamental point remains: Panama's interdiction highlights
undeniably dangerous trade among rogue states and their allies. Will
President Obama use this information wisely? Or will he ignore it
because it would upset his fantasy negotiations with Tehran and Pyongyang?

Mr. Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is the
author of "Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United
Nations and Abroad" (Simon & Schuster, 2007).

A version of this article appeared July 21, 2013, on page A17 in the
U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Another
Rogue-State Smuggling Route Is Revealed.

Source: "John Bolton: Another Rogue-State Smuggling Route Is Revealed -
WSJ.com" -
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324448104578618223753695026.html