Posted on 12/23/2002 7:20:11 PM PST by Dallas
Desperate efforts began yesterday to head off the growing Korean crisis as Pyongyang and Washington continued to talk up the tension.
The UN has confirmed that North Korea has carried out its threat to remove UN seals and dismantle monitoring cameras at a laboratory used to produce weapons-grade plutonium.
Senator Joseph Biden, the outgoing chair of the Senate foreign relations committee, warned that North Korea's plan to restart a programme for plutonium extraction could allow it to produce bombs "within months".
A spokesman for the Vienna - based International Atomic Energy Agency said: "There isn't any legitimate purpose for the facility other than separating plutonium from spent fuel."
Pyongyang has issued a series of threats, including one to "destroy the earth" if the US resorted to nuclear war against it. South Korea's president, Kim Dae-jung, and the president-elect, Roh Moo-hyun, sought to calm the mood by saying they wanted a peaceful resolution.
While Russia expressed concern at the North's weekend announcement, the deputy foreign minister warned the US not to aggravate the crisis.
But the US state department yesterday rejected Pyongyang's insistence that the crisis can be solved if the US signs a treaty of non-aggression. "We will not bargain or offer inducements for North Korea to live up to the treaties and agreements it has signed," a spokesman said.
US intelligence sources were quoted by the BBC as saying they believe "North Korea may already have a small number of nuclear bombs and the material to make a few more".
Mr Biden said the crisis was "a greater danger immediately to US interests ... than Saddam Hussein."
Yesterday, the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, dismissed such concerns. "We are capable of fighting two major regional conflicts," he said.
"We're capable of winning decisively in one and swiftly defeating in the case of the other, and let there be no doubt about it."
He said Washington chose to pursue a diplomatic strategy against North Korea for the moment, as that crisis was still at a relatively early stage.
The North Korean media, which is never short of a fiery turn of phrase, has given Bush administration hardliners all the material they may want.
The communist party's newspaper Workers' Daily declared that "the army and people of the DPRK are fully ready to mercilessly strike the bulwark of US imperialist aggressors" - implying that they could hit targets in the US.
"There can be no earth without Korea," it said. "The army and people of the DPRK will destroy the earth if the enemies dare make a nuclear strike at it. This is their do-or-die spirit."
When the heat is on Arafat, Saddam Hussain comes out with new threats,
When we expose the lies of North Korea, The leftovers of Communist Russia speak out
When we move towards Iraq, A statement is released from Osama bin Laden announcing a new Jihad
When we say something about the finatic leaders in Iran, Arafat and Osama comes forward with threats against America
When president Bush makes a general condemnation of all three, Jimmy Carter comes to their defense
It's a viscious circle and George W. Bush was correct in labeling them as an "Axis of Evil"
Don't worry folks, This is tha last of the despotic regimes that oppress their people and all we are hearing is the cries from the last of the "Evil Empires" as they assume their place in the ashheap of history
NK has spent a l-o-n-g time making its threats. Which HAS to mean that mollycoddling and 'diplomatic strategy' WAS used.
It doesn't seem like that 'approach' works with those commies.
You mean all the democrats?
Russia expressed concern at the North's weekend announcement
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No, the Tiger [China] better learn fast that America no longer has Clinton as President and we are not going to play those games anymore.
America is the "New Rome" now days, and it is about time we swat a few bugs like Iraq and North Korea, since they have not figured it out yet.
Yes, perhaps a well placed nuke would get the point across loud and clear.
Mess with America, and you will wish like heck you never made that error!
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Ya gotta love diplomats. One guy says he's going to destroy the Earth, and the other one expresses concern. I guess when you have 5,000 nukes, some guy telling you he's going to destroy you just doesn't have that much impact.