N. Korea Outpaces Iran on Nukes

The White House officials said Tuesday that North Korea was building nuclear weapons at a pace far faster than Iran—and the program could only have been built so quickly with the help of spies. Senior Obama administration and intelligence officials said North Korea’s new plant to enrich nuclear fuel is “significantly more advanced” than Iran’s similar attempts, which have taken Iran nearly 20 years to assemble. The rogue nation showed off the new plant to Stanford University nuclear expert Siegfried S. Hecker, a former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory and two of his Stanford colleagues, and Hecker said he was “stunned” at the fast pace that the plant had been built. Some have speculated that the program developed so quickly due to a sophisticated network of spies, or because North Korea has been developing a nuclear program far longer than they claim. Although this news is alarming, officials are more worried about North Korea’s relationship with the Middle East—and whether North Korea will sell these advanced nuclear weapons to Iran.