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What is the matter with Bush? Why won't he just take care of N. Korea once and for all, as he doesn't seem to be working on Iraq any longer. (Just my opinion)

I am really tired of hearing this kind of DemoncRAT stupidity being proffered. First of all, why don't people remember the threats North Korea periodically throws around EVERY TIME the US appears distracted with something else. They do this for several purposes, one being their attempts to blackmail US at a time when we're most vulnerable, another is to distract the US from protecting our interests and, lastly, like the DemoncRATs themselves, they're interested in weakening Bush in any way they can. The best way to deal with North Korea at this point in time is TO FINISH IRAQ. First that demonstration of power is not only designed to "shock & awe" the Iraqi's, it's designed to "impress" the North Koreans as well. Remember, North Korea has largely armed itself from the same merchants, Russia, China & France, that Iraq has and they need another reminder - ala 91 Gulf War - of what they're truly up against. The second thing addressing Iraq does is demonstrate US resolve in the face of mounting pressures from anti-US forces, including the French and North Korea. Everybody is looking and the last thing we need when dealing with North Korea is to blink, as the North Koreans and the DemoncRATs themselves are urging Bush & the US to do. Lastly, this whole argument is absurd because we ARE dealing with North Korea - we're moving armaments around, continuing surveillance flights with guards and are engaged behind the scenes both diplomatically and, undoubtedly, covertly, as well.

Pyongyang's uranium-enrichment programme is not far behind its plutonium one, says top official

WASHINGTON - North Korea could produce highly enriched uranium as fuel for nuclear weapons in months not years - much earlier than many have predicted, US Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly has said.

Policy on talks 'illogical' SOUTH Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young Kwan has described Pyongyang's objections to multilateral talks as ''illogical''.

He said the eventual solution of the nuclear crisis would involve economic aid for the impoverished country from Russia, China, Japan and South Korea as well as the US.

''It's illogical to exclude the potential aid providers from the talks,'' he said.

The uranium programme is the second of two nuclear programmes that Washington says North Korea can use to create weapons. But it was largely believed to be underdeveloped compared to the first programme, which used plutonium.

Washington says the plutonium project is already capable of yielding enough weapons-grade plutonium to build six to eight nuclear bombs within months.

In a new warning about the uranium programme, Mr Kelly said it also was well on its way.

'It is only probably a matter of months, and not years, behind the plutonium,' he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington on Wednesday.

That means the reclusive communist state could get nuclear weapons capability in the short term from both its uranium and plutonium programmes.

Despite this apparent threat, he reaffirmed the Bush administration's determination to engage Pyongyang in a comprehensive resolution of the crisis only in a multilateral forum, rather than bilateral talks as the North has demanded.

A recent congressional report had predicted the North's highly-enriched uranium programme could not produce significant amounts of fissile materials for 'several years'.

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, quoting the CIA, said the programme would not produce enough fuel for one or two bombs until 2005.

The US has been aware of Pyongyang's plutonium programme, centred on a nuclear complex at Yongbyon, since the early 1990s. It was frozen under a 1994 accord with Washington.

The uranium enrichment programme was revealed only last October when US officials confronted the North Koreans with secret intelligence.

Since then, Pyongyang has adopted a confrontational approach. It declared its intention to resume nuclear activities, expelled UN monitors, withdrew from a key nuclear treaty, restarted a research reactor and intercepted a US spy plane.

It also made preparations to begin reprocessing spent nuclear fuel, which would set the North on the road to full production of nuclear weapons.

But so far there is no evidence the reprocessing plant has begun operating but it would be a serious move and the US has not taken the military option off the table, said Mr Kelly, the State Department's top Asia-Pacific policymaker.

With the dispute dragging on, South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young Kwan yesterday criticised Pyongyang's objections to multilateral talks as 'illogical'.

He told South Korea's MBC radio that the eventual solution of the nuclear crisis would involve economic aid for the impoverished country, inevitably from Russia, China, Japan and South Korea as well as the US.

'It's illogical to exclude the potential aid providers from the talks,' he said. --Reuters, AP