North Korea Restarting Nuclear Reactor?
TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. In more world news, real fears today that North Korea may be taking more actions to further its nuclear weapons program, setting the world on edge. It turns out that while we were all talking about the Sony hack tied to that movie poking fun at dear leader Kim Jong-Un, the rogue nation may have had more troubling plans in the works. According to a U.S. think tank that monitors the regimen, satellite imagery seems to show recent activity of its main nuclear bomb fuel reactor, which was shut down, we thought, months ago. Take a look at these before and after pictures released by the U.S. Korea Institute of Johns Hopkins University. On the left, it shows aerials of the reactor from December 24th. On the right an image from just a week later, there are signs of steam there and snow melt on the rooftop. That seems to be an indication that something at the reactor was turned on, generating heat. I'm joined now by Gordon Chang, author of the book "Nuclear Showdown, North Korea Takes on the World." He is a columnist for forbes.com. Gordon, thanks so much for being here. North Korea, as you know well, better than I, already has uranium enrichment sites all over the country. What do you think this might mean?</s>GORDON CHANG, AUTHOR, "NUCLEAR SHOWDOWN": I think they're looking for one of three outcomes. One of them is that the world doesn't stop them and they get to keep all this plutonium for their arsenal. The second is we pay them to stop producing plutonium. But the third one, that's the one that really concerns me. You got to remember that Iran has agreed to freeze its plutonium program in its discussions with the international community and the North Koreans have sold them fissile material in the past going back to 2002. I'm concerned that this plutonium will end up in the hands of the atomic ayatollahs.</s>TAPPER: So you think that even though these are theoretically two different dealings with the west trying to stop the North Korean nuclear weapons program and stop the Iran nuclear weapons program, alleged nuclear weapons problem, do you think that they are completely related?</s>CHANG: Yes, they have been running a joint program since at least the turn of the century. Every time North Korea has detonated a nuclear device, the Iranians have been on site in North Korea. That Syrian reactor that the Israelis destroyed in September 2007, that was from North Korea. North Korean technicians were killed there and everybody thinks the Iranians paid for that reactor because the Syrians didn't have money. You know, you go back, there's a series of interactions between these two rogue states. So clearly they are working together.</s>TAPPER: For those who aren't familiar with your work, Gordon, you have been critical of both the Obama administration and the George W. Bush administration. You think that the way they have dealt with North Korea has allowed them to develop ballistic missile and long range missile capability to develop a nuclear bomb. What should the west do now to stop this?</s>CHANG: Well, the first thing is to think of this not as two separate programs, but really as one program with a lot of coordination from Beijing. Until we do that, I think we are going to have piecemeal solutions that don't really help. Unfortunately, I think we are going to have to have much tougher sanctions against both of these regimes and very difficult conversations with the Chinese because if we don't get China on board, there is no point in dealing with Iran or North Korea.</s>TAPPER: You said with a lot of coordination from the Chinese, from Beijing. Why would China want an Iran with nuclear weapons or a North Korea with nuclear weapons especially North Korea? That destabilizes Asia.</s>CHANG: One thing it does, every time North Korea acts up, we run to Beijing and ask for the Chinese to help and they extract concessions from us. This also keeps us off balance. With regard to Iran, the Chinese compete with the Russians for influence in the Middle East and they also want the Iranians to give them oil which is very important for the Chinese economy, but also because they don't want Iran to support the Muslims in China's northwest who really resent Chinese rule. There are a lot of reasons why China wants good relations with Iran and Beijing knows that the Iranians want nukes so the Chinese are willing to help them.</s>TAPPER: Very scary. Gordon Chang, thank you so much. Really appreciate it. We are getting some new information now about that deadly explosion at a maternity hospital in Mexico City this morning. The mayor's office says a delivery truck driver and two assistants are currently in custody. A camera captured the blast. Authorities say that at least one woman and one child died in that explosion but little else is known right now. Rescue teams fear that more people, including possibly newborns, could still be at the very least trapped. Emergency officials say more of the hospital could collapse at any minute. The supply truck was delivering liquefied petroleum gas when a hose started leaking and caused the tragic explosion. When we come back, he is used to taking leaps of faith when it comes to his career but will Kevin Costner's personal investment in his latest film pay off? I will talk to him next.