Though current U.S. policies might portray Iraq as a much larger nuclear weapons threat, North Korea seems more dangerous, according to a Gettysburg College physics professor who served on the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.
"Based on the best unclassified information available, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) could already have enough Plutonium to build two or three nuclear weapons," said Peter Pella, who received a meritorious honor award from the agency for service in achieving the indefinite extension of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons without conditions and without a vote in 1996. "They also seem to be trying to process enriched uranium, and they have a much more mature ballistic missile program than Iraq," he said. "Iraq's nuclear program was essentially destroyed by the gulf war and they must, for the time being, rely on trying to purchase enriched uranium from some other country."
Pella served as the William Foster Fellow Arms Control Specialist for the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency from 1994 to 1995 and again as a Foster Fellow from 2000 to 2001 in the Bureau of Nonproliferation at the Department of State. In addition to teaching at Gettysburg College, Pella has also served as a member of the physics faculty at Hendrix College, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and Rensselear Polytechnic Institute. He has served since 1984 as a research scientist in the nuclear physics group at Kent State University, where he also served as a research assistant for a National Science Foundtion-funded program in medium energy nuclear physics and as a teaching assistant.
Gettysburg College is a highly selective four-year residential college of liberal arts and sciences. With nearly 2,400 students, it is located on a 200-acre campus adjacent to the Gettysburg National Military Park. The college was founded in 1832.
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