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Hmm: North Korea Already Dismantling Its Nuke-Testing Facility?
Hot Air ^ | 2 May 2018 | Ed Morrissey

Posted on 05/02/2018 3:29:32 PM PDT by mandaladon

Sketchy reporting on this so far even a few hours out from this tweet, but hugely interesting if true — although perhaps not unexpected. CBS’s sources within the US intel community tell them that North Korea has begun dismantling their nuclear testing facility at Punggye-ri. If true, it might mean that they’re serious about ending their nuclear program … or that the facility is already useless:

Presumably US intelligence has developed this information from either reliable human intelligence, which is difficult to get in the prison camp north of the 38th Parallel, or from real-time satellite surveillance, which is much easier. So maybe it’s on the level, but it certainly seems odd. Kim Jong-un and his father spent billions and earned the wrath of the international community to build up nuclear leverage just for the moment when negotiations began over the final status of the Korean Peninsula. Now that they’re on the cusp of making use of their nuclear program, they’re unilaterally dismantling their key site for future weapons development short of a test of a warhead on a missile?

If it is on the level, it tends to corroborate what studies out of China have concluded — that the Kim regime has rendered Punggye-ri unusable. The sudden reduction in Mount Mantap’s elevation likely came from the collapse of the tunnels from which these cables are being removed, and the site has been polluted by radiation from the hydrogen-bomb test carried out last fall. That doesn’t disarm Kim of his existing nuclear devices, but it would cripple their program from developing any new designs and perhaps even production of existing designs, depending on how much of that took place in Punggye-ri.

(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: nkorea; northkorea; nuclear; trump
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Even so, why not wait for the negotiations to begin? Or have they already? Yonhap quotes a Seoul official as saying that Kim has already agreed to denuclearize, and that he also has conceded on inspections at Punggye-ri and other sites:~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Things are moving fast
1 posted on 05/02/2018 3:29:32 PM PDT by mandaladon
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To: mandaladon

Man, Trump led us into a nuclear Armageddon just like the MSM, dems and RINOs said he would.

No, I am NOT putting the tag! :) Too obvious.


2 posted on 05/02/2018 3:33:05 PM PDT by dp0622 (The Left should know if Trump is kicked out of office, it is WAR!)
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To: mandaladon

But to add a point. Have you ever seen a fake “tough” guy ripped apart on the streets by a REAL tough guy.

I’m talking verbally, with a few smacks thrown in.

I have. The fake tough guy’s face turns white. He shakes. All the power and strength and tough talk and bravado drain from his body.

He gets SLAPPED in front of a hundred people more than ONCE, and he is told to go home and he does.

True story.

THAT is Trump and Kim.

And THAT’S how you dance with fake tough guys.


3 posted on 05/02/2018 3:35:07 PM PDT by dp0622 (The Left should know if Trump is kicked out of office, it is WAR!)
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To: mandaladon

We will never read in the papers what really went on behind the scenes.


4 posted on 05/02/2018 3:39:41 PM PDT by Innovative ("Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." -- Vince Lombardi)
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To: mandaladon

I suspect the dismantling was already done by the “Rods of God”.


5 posted on 05/02/2018 3:46:55 PM PDT by sevlex
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To: mandaladon

They have been freed of the control of spooks.


6 posted on 05/02/2018 3:48:12 PM PDT by Edgar3 (Libnorance is a mental disease, and it's getting Progressively worse!)
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To: mandaladon

There’s a rumor out that that facility collapsed during the last test.


7 posted on 05/02/2018 3:48:46 PM PDT by Dusty Road (")
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To: mandaladon
Now that they’re on the cusp of making use of their nuclear program, they’re unilaterally dismantling their key site for future weapons development short of a test of a warhead on a missile?

The site used for testing does NOT have to be the site used for development. These are vastly different functions with different physical requirements. NK could be dismantling or shutting down their test site which may have imploded anyway. This may have little to do with their development facilities wherever they are. The Norks could retain and hide their nukes and development program and just stop nuke testing .. for now. Who knows? But some people are jumping way ahead.

8 posted on 05/02/2018 3:52:49 PM PDT by plain talk
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To: mandaladon

If true, Kim lost the hope to develop his nukes to maturity before the sanctions completely brought down his regime. So he either has to buy time to restore his test capability, or switch to Plan B, retaining his power while abandoning his belligerence. It will be Trump’s challenge to eliminate the viability of Plan A, and make Plan B too good to pass up.


9 posted on 05/02/2018 3:54:33 PM PDT by rightwingcrazy (We)
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To: mandaladon

Rods of God Dismantling Service


10 posted on 05/02/2018 4:04:03 PM PDT by bigbob (Trust Sessions. Trust the Plan.)
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To: mandaladon

Dismantling the stuff they dug out. One ton titanium rods will get your stuff buried.


11 posted on 05/02/2018 4:25:45 PM PDT by Vermont Lt
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To: dp0622

Not only that, but he signed DACA and gave amnesty to 20 million Mexicans.


12 posted on 05/02/2018 4:28:31 PM PDT by Balding_Eagle ( The Great Wall of Trump ---- 100% sealing of the border. Coming soon.)
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To: mandaladon

I still worry Kim is playing rope a dope under the direction the direction of Xi.


13 posted on 05/02/2018 4:33:58 PM PDT by buckalfa (I was so much older then, but I'm younger than that now.)
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To: Balding_Eagle

China must have been a clarifying epiphany.

But then... there is the bus crash...


14 posted on 05/02/2018 4:35:37 PM PDT by Clutch Martin (Hot sauce aside, every culture has its pancakes, just as every culture has its noodle.)
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To: mandaladon

This is very good. Let us all not forget the Christians in terrible concentration camps in N. Korea. Remember to tweet President Trump to take up their cause. It is unbelievable what they suffer. Also remember to pray for them.


15 posted on 05/02/2018 4:48:59 PM PDT by Bellflower (Who dares believe Jesus. He says absolutely amazing things, which few dare consider.)
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To: buckalfa

Me too. In fact, I think we are in for a monumental screwing


16 posted on 05/02/2018 4:50:45 PM PDT by AmericanInTokyo (CONSISTENT on my North Korean observations for 20 years on FR during Dem/GOP regime alike)
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To: dp0622
lol. Yeah. I leave it out too these days. ;D And yes. You're right. VERY obvious!

Looks like Kimmie can't wait to put on his international dancing shoes and join the party after all these years of isolation. Hell. Me thinks he's up nightly looking over recipes to bring a really yummy buffet dish as well!!! ;D.

17 posted on 05/02/2018 5:28:56 PM PDT by GOP Poet
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To: AmericanInTokyo; buckalfa; mandaladon

We don’t know the real backstory on this. But at the same time, in defense of those who are feeling a level of apprehension, as I am:

It’s pretty hard to trust someone whose ideology instructs that ‘the ends justify the means’; and who would starve their own country’s children while giving themselves multi-million dollar birthday parties...

I’m just hoping someone’s balls are in a quality vice.


18 posted on 05/02/2018 5:41:13 PM PDT by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it.")
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To: ransomnote; Whenifhow; null and void; aragorn; EnigmaticAnomaly; kalee; Kale; 2ndDivisionVet; ...

p


19 posted on 05/02/2018 7:49:56 PM PDT by bitt (Back when we had CHILD CONTROL we really didn't need GUN CONTROL)
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To: GOP Poet

To "join the international community" Kim will have to open up a series of horrid prison camps throughout the North which he approves of, and empty them, and expose himself to charges of crimes against humanity by the World Court. (His assassination of his half-brother using chemical weapons on foreign soil is enough to put him in prison for life). Do you honestly think he will do such a thing? He is not sincere. he is merely posturing, to get food, oil, resource assistance, and get the series of UN sanctions dropped which are starting to strangle him; he is "giving up" one facility that is no longer viable anyways; he has made NO statement about dismantling MANY NUMEROUS OTHER NUCLEAR RELATED SITES in North Korea (Pakchon, Taechon, Chonma, Yongjo-ri, Kanggye, not to mention new facilities that they will just build underground and without international inspection we won't know what the hell is going on up there), nor has Kim said anything to his people in their domestic NK media that they are going to give up their nuclear power. The media here in Asia is full of this information -- for some reason in the USA they fail to report it or they do not have reporters here in the region who are honest enough to include this perspective in their reporting...and as a result a bunch of people break out the champagne back home and foolishly prattle "Nobel! Nobel! Nobel!" It is really pathetic to see when viewed against the larger context. We went through this crap with Clinton, Bush and Obama already. Particularly I had my battles with mindless/clueless/ignorant-of-Korean-issues Bushbots here on FR who thought, like Trump, he would be different from Dem's and strong and resolute but it was proven that he too and his advisors such as Condi and Chris Hill fell victim North Korean tricks and machinations.

Sorry, we have been down that road too many times. Inscrutable and clever North Korea (and their sponsor who is also playing games behind the scenes in tandem with P'yang, and jacking the Region around) never changes. Naive and out-negotiated America never changes.

20 posted on 05/02/2018 7:56:06 PM PDT by AmericanInTokyo (CONSISTENT on my North Korean observations for 20 years on FR during Dem/GOP regime alike)
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