NORTH KOREA IN NUCLEAR TEST [Claims it has Reprocessed Some of 8,000 Spent Nuclear Fuel Rods]

Sky News UK ^ | Wednesday July 9, 11:43 AM | staff report

[ewing]

North Korea has recently tested devices used to trigger atomic explosives 70 times, according to the country neighbor South Korea.

And the country has confirmed that the North has reprocessed some of its 8,000 spent Nuclear Fuel Rods.

Since April, North Korea had claimed that it had all but finished reprocessing the 8,000 rods, but until now both US and South Korean officials have doubted the claim.

Expert say that if the rods were reprocessed they could yield enough plutoninum for several atomic bombs 'within months.'

The South's Intelligence Agency said that the devices were tested at Yongduk-dong, some 25 miles northwest of Yongbyon, the center of its nuclear program.

[ewing]

Ruh-roe..

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[RightWhale]

tested devices used to trigger atomic explosives 70 times

They will need to test the full-up device. What an embarrassment if they tried to blow up Tokyo but only managed to leave a puddle of molten uranium in someone's zen garden.

[dark_lord]

It is suspected that Pakistan has tested their "devices" for them, and that N. Korea and Pakistan worked closely together in the development of Pakistan's nukes. I think we can conclude that N. Korea has nukes, and that they will work as designed.

[Constitutional Patriot]

And who do we have to thank for there being nuke reactors in N. Korea?

I think that Ann Coulter's new book "Treason" addresses sedition on the part of the Democrat party very well. They are the anti-America party of treason!!

[af_vet_1981]

And who do we have to thank for there being nuke reactors in N. Korea?

1. George Bush
2. Bill Clinton
3. George W. Bush

Only George W. Bush can solve the problem before NK tries to murder millions of our citizens or those of our allies. He has been in office over 2 years now. He is responsible for what happens now.

[Constitutional Patriot]

I thought Clinton had the reactors installed as a means to provide affordable energy to the marxist worker's paradise? Where did George H.W. Bush fit in?

Also, give W some credit. I believe he has them in his crosshaires...

[af_vet_1981]

I give him credit where credit is due. He has the opportunity to destroy the North Korean nuclear-weapons program. We cannot blame Bill Clinton if George W. Bush doesn't do it.

• In the early 1980s, US satellite photos picked up the shape of what intelligence officials felt could be a nuclear facility in the North. They were correct. The small 5-megawatt reactor, soon to be joined by a much larger one, was located at a river bend at Yongbyon, 60 miles from the capital. North Korea's indigenous program was headed by Lee Sung Ki - a scientist who studied at Kyoto University in Japan, headed the engineering department at Seoul University, and then left for the North during the Korean War. He became a close chum of Kim Il Sung. In 1985, a promise by Soviets for four light-water reactors for a civilian program came with the stipulation that Pyongyang sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It did. Mr. Oberdorfer, in his book "The Two Koreas," argues Pyongyang probably did not realize the nature of the international pressures that would arise as a result. At the same time, the North continued pursuing its secret program at Yongbyon, though with minimal attention from the small circle of experts in Washington aware of the threat. A former official in the Reagan and Bush administrations told Oberdorfer, "The real problem was the policymakers' reluctance to face the issue, an avoidance of reality that probably flowed from the realization of the scope and difficulty of the problem." Just a decade ago, the North used its threat of a potential bomb to cause the US and then South Korea to eliminate nuclear programs from the peninsula. In the early 1990s, the US withdrew nuclear weapons from the South; after a treaty with the North in 1992, the South ended its own nuclear program.
• The North Korean nuclear-weapons program dates back to the 1980s, when North Korea began to operate facilities for uranium fabrication and conversion. In September 1989 the magazine Jane's Defence Weekly stated that North Korea "could manufacture nuclear devices in five years' time, and the means to deliver them soon afterward".
• The declassified intelligence documents show the evolution of intelligence concern about the North Korean nuclear program. Initial identification of the program by the CIA in the early 1980s was not immediately followed by concern that North Korea was seeking to develop nuclear weapons (see "A Ten-Year Projection …"). By the mid-1980s, CIA analysis discussed not only the components of the nuclear program, but the potential that North Korea would, indeed, seek to develop nuclear weapons. However, the CIA did note the energy-production rationale for the program and the lack of evidence that the North was actually planning to joint the nuclear club. The concerns raised by this intelligence prompted U.S. efforts to secure cooperation from Moscow and Beijing, as well as Western supplier nations, in refusing to provide North Korea with materials needed for its nuclear program (see the ca. January 5, 1985 Department of State Briefing Paper). By the very late 1980s, however, the rapid expansion of the North Korean program was the subject of several analyses. These intelligence assessments should be viewed along with those available on a number of the websites cited below which provide testimony by various Directors of Central Intelligence on the North Korean nuclear threat. These analyses must also be read with an understanding of the uncertainties and ambiguities that surround any effort to assess the capabilities and intentions of such a secretive regime as North Korea's.