Posted on 10/12/2006 9:46:09 AM PDT by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
The United States continues to gather information to determine whether North Korea’s reported nuclear test actually involved an atomic device, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Oct. 10).
The assumption now is that Pyongyang detonated a nuclear weapon, according to intelligence and Bush administration officials. However, more environmental samples are needed before it can be concluded that it was not simply the blast of massive amounts of conventional explosives.
The U.S. military sent an aircraft around the Sea of Japan yesterday to monitor for nuclear radiation, two intelligence officials said. They said it might take winds days to shift radiation to a location where it could be detected.
“Over time, whenever the prevailing winds blow out over the Gulf of Japan, it will be more likely that we get some detection,” one official said.
Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said Washington would use seismic data and other information to determine the cause of the blast.
“There is a possibility that fallout is detectable, and then there’s a variety of other intelligence means to determine the veracity of the allegation of the tests that they conducted,” he said.
Intercepted communications and additional data are being reviewed, a Pentagon official told the Post (Linzer/Ricks, Washington Post, Oct. 11).
The apparent small size of the blast — possibly less than one kiloton — has sparked discussion that the test was a failure.
“Either this was a deceit using a few hundred tons of chemical high explosives or it was a nuclear device that did not go as intended,” said Bob Peurifoy, a former weapons executive at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico. “I won’t call it a dud — a few hundred tons of explosives is not a dud — but a fizzle. And the designer has probably been shot by now” (Ian Hoffman, Inside Bay Area, Oct. 10).
There is a “remote possibility” that the United States will never know whether North Korea met its test objectives, said White House spokesman Tony Snow. Washington has never gained a clear understanding of several 1998 Pakistani tests, nor has it confirmed that a 1979 flash in waters near Africa was a nuclear test, the Post reported.
The low yield of the explosion is believed to have been caused by poor design, U.S. officials said. A higher yield would require simultaneous detonation of conventional explosives surrounding the weapon’s plutonium core, causing the radioactive material to compress and implode (Linzer/Ricks, Washington Post).
Pyongyang might also have used aging, contaminated plutonium, the New York Times reported. Other explanations are also possible, said Philip Coyle, former weapons testing chief at the Pentagon.
“Maybe they were trying to be sophisticated, and trimmed back on the amount of fuel” in hopes of readying a small warhead for use on missiles, Coyle said. “Maybe they wanted a Ferrari the first time out of the box, and got a Model T instead” (Sanger/Broad, New York Times, Oct. 11).
The small size of the explosion has led to concerns among U.S. intelligence officials that North Korea might detonate another device in order to improve the result or more conclusively illustrate its capabilities, the Post reported (Linzer/Ricks, Washington Post).
An earthquake this morning in northern Japan raised suspicions that Pyongyang had conducted another test, the Associated Press reported. The event appears to be natural.
“I have not received information about any indications … that a [second] test has taken place,” said Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The U.N. Security Council was scheduled to meet again today to consider the U.S. and Japanese push to sanction North Korea. Penalties could include a partial trade embargo that covered weapons exports by Pyongyang and inspections of imports to ensure the Stalinist state received no material that could be used to produce weapons of mass destruction.
China has said it would support some penalties, but not to the level envisioned by Tokyo and Washington.
“We don’t have complete agreement on this yet, that’s hardly a news flash, but we’re making progress we’re I think at a point we can try and narrow some of the differences we do have,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said yesterday.
Sanctions must be approved in a matter of days to prevent the Security Council from losing face in the standoff, diplomats said (Nick Wadhams, Associated Press I/ABC News, Oct. 11).
North Korea lashed out today against the threat of sanctions, AP reported.
“If the U.S. keeps pestering us and increases pressure, we will regard it as a declaration of war and will take a series of physical corresponding measures,” the country’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The country’s No. 2 leader, Kim Yong Nam, said it would conduct more nuclear tests if Washington did not drop its “hostile attitude.”
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said no attack is planned against North Korea. “There is no intention to invade or attack them. So they have that guarantee. … I don’t know what more they want,” she said.
She added, however, that moving forward with its nuclear program would earn North Korea “international condemnation and international sanctions unlike anything they have faced before” (Hans Greimel, Associated Press II/Yahoo!News, Oct. 11).
Japan today banned all imports from North Korea and barred its ships from Japanese ports, AP reported (Associated Press III/Los Angeles Times, Oct. 11).
Ever notice communist dictators always define their countries as "Democratic"
Background Note: North Korea
Flag of North Korea is three horizontal bands of blue (top), red (triple width), and blue; the red band is edged in white; on the hoist side of the red band is a white disk with a red five-pointed star.
PROFILE
OFFICIAL NAME:
Democratic People's Republic of Korea
Geography
Area: 120,410 sq. km. (47,000 sq. mi.), about the size of Mississippi.
Cities: Capital--Pyongyang. Other cities--Hamhung, Chongjin, Wonsan, Nampo, and Kaesong.
Terrain: About 80% of land area is moderately high mountains separated by deep, narrow valleys and small, cultivated plains. The remainder is lowland plains covering small, scattered areas.
Climate: Long, cold, dry winters; short, hot, humid, summers.
So they'll set off another faux bomb in a few days?
We should send Bolton to abuse the little man in person.
Prediction: there will never be any radiation detected from this "nuclear" test
All the articles on this inform me that some radioctivity has to escape into the atmosphere if this is real. Furthermore, that these byproducts cannot be simulated.
Furthermore, if this is a genuine nuclear blast that proved smaller than anticipated, it would be near unprecedented. It's usually the other way around. The first Trinity blast was 18K.
Wouldn't this be consistent with a successful test of a suitcase sized dirty Nuk?
What if China is merely getting around the test ban treaty and using DPRK to test their neutron bomb?
He hasn't a clue what we would do to his country if he fired a nuke at us. First, we'd shoot it down with whatever means, then we'd fire a nuclear volley at his military structures.
This was a gigantic hoax, not a dud atomic test, even a partial fission event would have produced some atomic particle evidence. N. Korea's Corbomite Maneuver run by John Mark Karr.
However, as this hoax plays out, the N. Koreans may become more desperate for bluster recognition and provoke us with conventional methods. Look out for another USS Pueblo type move.
October 12, 2006
Bush Mulls Bombing N. Korea ‘Back to the Food Age’
by Scott Ott
(2006-10-10) — Even as President George Bush insisted that the U.S. would continue to pursue diplomacy in the North Korean nuclear crisis, he added today that every option is still on the table, including the possibility of “bombing them back to the food age.”
“It breaks my compassionate conservative heart that Kim Jong-Il’s people are starving while he’s blowing millions of dollars on weapons of mass destruction,” said Mr. Bush. “If it weren’t for U.S. and United Nations food aid, he’d have a massive famine on his hands.”
The president suggested that a carefully executed bombing campaign, or a Special Ops military unit, could return the country to “the food age” — a time when the Korean people could feed themselves without assistance.
“Sometimes,” the president said, “it takes guns to make butter.”
Miniaturization of nuclear warheads involves technologies that are generally regarded as being to advanced for novices.
My money is on a fizzle, ie. a semi-dud.
Oh, and if the NK's really did have the capacity to make small, compact warheads, they'd be mounting them atop their tactical missiles first.
You don't need to miniturize a suitcase sized dirty Nuk. By definition it's dirty and low yield which is entirely consisten with the NK test.
The delivery system is not a missile, but Islamists smuggling it over the Mexican border.
The Chicoms have already perfected and tested (multiple times) nuk weapons in the megaton range, so why go to NK and test a suitcase sized nuk?
I would think that testing a suitcase-sized dirty nuke would be unnecessary. What could be learned about the dispersal pattern with underground testing? Why no do an above ground test using radioactive material with a very short half-life, for instance? The goal, after all, it to disperse radioactive material rather than to achieve a certain size blast.
Japan has a very sensitive neutrino detector that would have have registered something.About 10% of the energy released by atomic bombs slips out as neutrinos.
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