Lileks may have inadvertently stumbled on to the secret behind North Korea's insistance on building nuclear plants:

The North Korean army, you see, had a fleet of armored hovercraft for floating over minefields, as well as rifles that shot DU rounds, and various other nifty shiny toys. What must have gone through Kim Il Jong�s runty-drunk forebrain as he watched that? Perhaps shame that he had none of these fine toys; perhaps fear as he wondered whether the West thought he did, and had developed countermeasures.

So they're trying to produce materials for making depleted Uranium ammunition. Inscrutable, baby.