Posted on 12/06/2004 6:56:56 AM PST by dead
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency is convinced North Korea has built four to six nuclear bombs out of the nuclear material the agency had monitored there until 2002.
Mohamed ElBaradei, whose team of investigators was expelled from North Korea, said: "We know they have the fissile material ... I'm sure they have reprocessed it all."
He said enough time had passed for North Korea to solve the problems of turning the 8000 spent nuclear fuel rods the agency was monitoring into weapons-grade plutonium. "The production process is not that difficult."
He said his claim was not based on new intelligence but on the agency's extensive knowledge of the country. A spokesman for the US National Security Council, Sean McCormack, said he was unaware of any change in the official assessment of North Korea.
Dr ElBaradei's comments go beyond anything the CIA or the US President, George Bush, have said publicly and puts pressure on the White House to either take forcible action against North Korea or cut a deal.
The US insists North Korea has enough nuclear material to make only one or two weapons and that it cannot afford to sell its plutonium or conduct a nuclear test. However, that assessment is based on estimates from the early 1990s and has been contested behind the scenes.
A former senior State Department official, Robert Einhorn, said the comments would "certainly create some pressure" on Mr Bush. "Would the North Koreans ever sell their plutonium? It becomes more plausible if they think we are turning the screws on them," he said.
North Korea agreed in 1994 to freeze plutonium production but in 2002 renounced the deal and ejected the International Atomic Energy Agency after the US accused it of trying to produce highly enriched uranium.
Since then the US had been working with China, South Korea, Japan and Russia to negotiate the dismantling of North Korea's weapons program, but the talks stalled in September. They are expected to resume next year.
Last month the commander of US forces in South Korea, General Leon LaPorte, said he was increasingly worried "North Korea, in its desire for hard currency, would sell weapons-grade plutonium to some terrorist organisations".
Labor's foreign affairs spokesman, Kevin Rudd, said Dr ElBaradei's assessment was profoundly disturbing.
A spokesman for the Prime Minister, John Howard, said Mr Howard declined to comment.
Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has defended his decision not to allow international investigators to interrogate Dr A.Q.Khan, the Pakistani scientist accused of peddling nuclear secrets.
In an interview with CNN on Sunday, Mr Musharraf said requests from UN weapons inspectors indicated a lack of trust in Pakistan. "We can question him the best ... This man is a hero for the Pakistanis," he said.
The New York Times, The Washington Post
Thanks, good to know. I say the Marines are the best, but really its our Air Force guys who are #1.
Even a metal button or wrist watch will act as a neutron emitter when a neutron bomb goes off...
http://www.manuelsweb.com/neutronbomb.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_bomb
Invented by Sam Cohen
http://www.manuelsweb.com/sam_cohen.htm
During the 50s and 60s, HUNDREDS of atomic and thermonuclear bombs were detonated ABOVE GROUND and we're still here to talk about it. Some were over ten times the yield of the largest we have in our inventory now.
A few nukes would not result in enough "fallout" to get your panties in a bunch about.
ERWs (Enhanced Radiation Weapons, aka 'neutron bombs') are very destructive in themselves, contrary to popular misconceptions. An EHR of, say, 5okiloTon yield would cause approximately the same blast damage as the 10-20 kT Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. They would kill biologicals out to a greater distance through radiation effects than those weapons did, but they still are enormously destructive. In general the radiation effects are enhanced about threefold over "conventional" nuclear bombs.
50 kT (not 5oKiloTon)
I probably ought to add that it appears that the US has no EHRs in our inventory and that, most likely, because we have rejected that they are more useful than conventionals bacause they complicate the battlefield situation rather than simplify it.
Nothing short of military confrontation could have stopped this. If that's what you're suggesting then I would agree. Anything short of that, fuh-get aboud it....
Are we as healthy
as we were before? Are we
susceptible to
weird, emergent bugs
that didn't used to hurt us?
Are the ozone caps
the same as they were?
Post hoc ergo propter hoc,
sure, but ya wonder . . .
This may shed some light on this:
http://prophecy.org/167pro.htm
This prophet says that an atomic bomb will be detonated in San Francisco in the year of the Ram, which the next one is in 2015. The year of the Ram happens every twelve years. This prophet has been amazingly accurate, I have followed him and the site since 1995.
Mohommed needs to leave,with Kofi.
These mutts are endangering my country,life.
Actually three; the third was an elected official in the 1970s, replaced by RR.
>>If it ever happens we will not know which rouge nation did it.
Nuclear materials have known signatures. We'll likely know the origin of the materials from the fallout.
I'm not very optimistic about this.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.