North Korea: U.S. Plans Nuclear Attack

AP ^ | March 9, 2003 | JAE-SUK YOO

[Indy Pendance]

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea on Sunday accused the United States of plotting an atomic attack against it, continuing the communist North's hostile rhetoric in the standoff over its moves to develop nuclear programs.

Chief U.N. nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei warned that the world must not tolerate the North's ambitions and said in an interview that "all countries must be treated equally."

When asked whether North Korea poses a greater threat than Iraq, ElBaradei told the German weekly newspaper Bild am Sonntag that "in both cases, we are worried about the proliferation of nuclear weapons."

"The difference is that, in Iraq, we can now check with a team of highly qualified inspectors whether there is a new nuclear weapons program," said ElBaradei, who heads the Vienna, Austria-based International Atomic Energy Agency.

"In North Korea, IAEA inspectors were forced out of the country in December, and we know that North Korea is in a position to produce weapons-grade plutonium."

The nuclear dispute flared in October when Washington said Pyongyang admitted pursuing a nuclear program.

Washington and its allies cut off oil shipments to the impoverished communist state. The North retaliated by expelling U.N. monitors, moving to reactivate its frozen nuclear facilities and withdrawing from the global Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

In recent months, the isolated North has taken steps to restart its plutonium-production line at a mothballed reactor, and expelled U.N. inspectors who were monitoring the shutdown reactor.

ElBaradei's agency has sent the dispute to the U.N. Security Council, and while Washington says it wants to settle the dispute diplomatically, it has not ruled out a military option.

North Korea claims the Bush administration is planning pre-emptive strikes on its military bases and nuclear facilities, which U.S. officials believe are being used to make atomic bombs.

On Sunday, its state KCNA news agency said the U.S. Department of Defense mapped out a plan including "not only cruise missile strikes and massive air raids, etc., but the use of tactical nuclear weapons."

The North's "army and people will take every possible self-defensive measure to cope with the U.S. bellicose forces' new war moves," it said.

Tensions between Pyongyang and Washington increased last week after North Korean fighter jets intercepted a U.S. reconnaissance plane over the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.

U.S. officials believe Pyongyang may be preparing to test fire another missile soon, following the launch of an anti-ship missile off its east coast late last month.

The Pentagon is deploying 12 B-1 and 12 B-52 bombers to Guam, about 2,000 miles from North Korea in case of conflict in the region.

"These moves indicate that the U.S. Air Force is taking the lead in implementing the U.S. imperialists' strategy to mount a pre-emptive attack on (North Korea)," said Pyongyang's official Rodong Sinmun newspaper.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials demanded that Pyongyang dismantle its nuclear facilities in Yongbyon during unofficial talks in Germany last month, a major Japanese daily said Sunday.

U.S. diplomats also called for Pyongyang to allow U.N. monitors to return to verify that it wasn't enriching uranium for its purported nuclear weapons program during the meetings at the North Korean Embassy in Berlin on Feb. 20-21, the Asahi newspaper reported.

North Korea rejected the demands and the meetings ended in disagreement, the paper said, citing an unidentified former U.S. official who attended the meeting. Pyongyang had proposed a visit by U.S. nuclear inspectors, it said.

U.S. officials were not immediately available for comment Sunday.

[rageaholic]

BAHAH that was the funnyest post I've seen in ages.

[Georg_von_Frundsberg]

I was there in '87 when they had When Kim Dae Jung first ran, and there was a lot of anti-US protesting. But that was all college students in the cities. Odashee and Ajema in the countryside loved us. Especially when we drove our tracks through their rice paddies so they could collect maneuver damage money. I can remember getting entertained with food, soju, and their daughters. I think there was a big pro US rally in Seoul recently, not that anybody covered it.

[CathyRyan]

Is this the old nuclear attack or is this a new one?