North Korea 'Has Two Nuclear Bombs'

North Korea possesses two plutonium-based nuclear bombs, a senior Bush administration official said yesterday. It was the first official confirmation that a member of President Bush's "Axis of Evil" has obtained nuclear weapons.

"It is our assessment that North Korea has reprocessed before 1994 sufficient plutonium for one or two nuclear weapons," the official said, asking to remain anonymous. When pressed he said North Korea had two bombs.

A satellite image of the Yongbyon nuclear facility that may produce weapons-grade uranium A senior US official suggested that North Korea, which is ruled by Kim Jong-il, an unpredictable, despotic leader, may have had foreign help in creating its uranium enrichment programme.

The official told reporters in Washington that, according to US studies of other attempts to produce enriched uranium: "This has never been done indigenously. . . these programmes are dependent on support from the outside."

Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, said that although no western intelligence official had physically laid a hand on a North Korean nuclear warhead: "I believe they have a small number of nuclear weapons."

Mr Rumsfeld's remarks were prompted by North Korea's own admission that - separately from any plutonium stockpiles - it has been running a secret programme to produce enriched weapons-grade uranium.

North Korea's admission, which came during a tense meeting with a senior US envoy, has angered and dismayed Western allies.

Britain, which only established diplomatic relations with North Korea two years ago, abruptly postponed the despatch of the first full British ambassador to Pyongyang, David Slinn, who had been due to go this weekend.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "In the light of this news, we are reflecting further on the best time for David Slinn to take up his appointment."

US seeks to avoid Korean 'nightmare'

Reports by David Rennie in Washington
(Filed: 18/10/2002)

Military conflict on the densely populated Korean peninsula is considered a nightmare option which could leave millions dead.

This calculation explains why President George W Bush and his allies have reacted to the sudden admission by North Korea that it has a secret nuclear programme with calls for diplomacy rather than the beating of war drums.

Although Washington has made clear that it will topple Saddam Hussein by force if need be, Mr Bush would only say it was "troubling, sobering news" that North Korea is trying to produce enriched uranium, a key ingredient for nuclear bomb-making.

"This is best addressed through diplomatic channels at this point," a White House spokesman said, rejecting comparisons between North Korea and Iraq. North Korea has a ready supply of low-grade nuclear fuel from a defunct reactor shut down under a 1994 agreement brokered by the Clinton administration, and probably made its two plutonium bombs from that.

But it has now admitted that it is trying to produce enriched uranium, presumably for more nuclear weapons.

South Korea's capital, Seoul, lies well within range of North Korea's huge arsenal of artillery batteries and suspected biological and chemical weapons systems. There are 37,000 US troops on the frontier, a reminder of the Korean War from 1950-53.

North Korea's latest act of nuclear brinkmanship was made public only on Wednesday night after it had been privately digested for 12 days by western governments.

Despite the disclosure, Washington does not believe that war is imminent in the Korean peninsula. Although North Korea maintains a vast army and weapons programme, it has been effectively contained since the end of the 1950-53 war, which left three million dead.

North Korea's unpredictable and despotic leader, Kim Jong-il, appears most concerned to ensure his own survival and has long used the threat posed by his weapons to extort aid and money from richer neighbours.

This month, Mr Bush sent a senior envoy, James Kelly, to confront North Koreans with evidence of their attempts to produce enriched uranium.

At their initial meeting, North Korean officials angrily rejected the charges as fabrications. The next day - almost certainly after consulting Kim - officials acknowledged the programme, and said they had "more powerful things as well", a possible reference to chemical and biological weapons.

One American official described the North Korean attitude as "belligerent", rather than apologetic.

North Korea also announced it no longer considers itself bound by the 1994 Framework Agreement on nuclear weapons, brokered by Bill Clinton after an earlier nuclear stand-off.Under that agreement, the North promised to end nuclear weapons research in exchange for free fuel oil and the construction of two light water nuclear reactors for electricity generation.

Though some South Korean officials hailed North Korea's admission as encouraging honesty, past history makes it just as likely that, in economic desperation Kim is playing his nuclear ace again.

North Korea, whose planned economy has been near collapse for 10 years, has long extorted food, fuel and other needs from the outside world through a mixture of threats and concessions.

In the next few days, Mr Bush plans to discuss the crisis with the presidents of China and Russia, the two nations which come closest to being allies of North Korea. Washington has also sent envoys to Japan and South Korea.

North Korea's nasty game

(Filed: 18/10/2002)

Despite its more forthright attitude towards North Korea, the Bush administration is being sucked into the same diplomatic quagmire as its predecessor. Early this month, James Kelly, assistant secretary of state, presented Pyongyang with evidence of a secret nuclear weapons programme. Having at first denied it, the North Koreans then admitted they were working to produce enriched uranium, a fissile material, in clear violation of a non-proliferation agreement signed with the United States in 1994.

Their confession was not made public until nearly two weeks after Mr Kelly's visit, suggesting that Washington, already preoccupied with Iraq, wanted time before deciding how to react. Yesterday, George W Bush described the latest evidence of North Korean roguery as "troubling, sobering news" and said he was seeking a peaceful solution through diplomatic channels. Donald Rumsfeld's suspicion that North Korea already has nuclear weapons looks well-founded.

Pyongyang is a past master at playing a weak hand skilfully. Yet in the early 1990s it used its embryonic nuclear programme to bring Washington to the negotiating table and to extract concessions.

In return for a halt to work on its nuclear reactors and permission for them to be continuously monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency, America and its allies would supply it with two safer reactors for electricity generation and, pending their becoming operational, with heavy fuel oil. That deal has been regularly undermined by North Korean procrastination. In the light of this week's revelations, it must now be considered a dead letter.

But where do the Americans go from here? They are committed to constraining North Korea as part of the "axis of evil". Yet military action, advocated for Iraq, presents enormous difficulties. It could trigger a devastating war between the two halves of the Korean peninsula, and is opposed by the governments in Seoul and Japan, America's closest Asian allies.

The situation is further complicated by South Korea's fear that the collapse of its northern neighbour could land it with an insupportable economic burden. In meetings with the leaders of China, Russia, South Korea and Japan in the coming weeks, Mr Bush will try to formulate a new policy towards Pyongyang. Despite his anathematising of North Korea, the President, like Bill Clinton before him, will be forced to treat with a regime which has fashioned nuclear cheating and economic illiteracy into a surprisingly powerful diplomatic lever.

Two years after the Bush Administration decide to continue to pursue the Clinton-begun appeasement of North Korean dictators by building them nuclear weapons-producing nuclear reactors and making them the largest recipient of US foreign aid in all of Asia with the exception of Israel, they grudgingly admit that North Korea has nukes and is continuing to build them after all during the past eight years. What is the President going to do? Is he going to show the North Koreans that this insolence will not stand by taking immediate action against them or is he going to continue to appease them so as not to upset his plans to invade Iraq, which without any nukes or the long-range missiles that North Korea has, poses a far lesser threat to the US? I am looking for Bush to show some leadership here, but frankly I'm not holding my breath given his past record of appeasing the Communists of North Korea and the PRC.

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.