Posted on 05/20/2005 8:52:40 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
US might find Pyongyang strike 'tempting'
By Hamish McDonald
Beijing
May 21, 2005
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South Korean electronics giant Samsung has launched a unilateral initiative to improve relations with the North. It has signed North Korean dancer Cho Myong-ae to promote its mobile phones. Cho will be the first North Korean to appear in an advertisement in the South. |
A nuclear arms control expert has warned that the United States might be tempted to carry out a strike on the reactor that is North Korea's source of bomb-making plutonium.
The warning comes as North Korean moves suggest it may soon carry out a nuclear test.
The North Koreans last month shut down the reactor and removed its 8000 fuel rods after two years of operation. This was apparently to start reprocessing the rods to extract the plutonium that is created during reactor operations.
Peter Hayes, head of the respected San Francisco-based Nautilus Institute, said the removal of the fuel rods also meant there was now an opportunity to destroy the reactor with a precision strike - without a risk of a plume of radioactive material being blown over North Korea and neighbouring countries.
"You would hit the reactor so you could cap any future plutonium production," he said. "Even if it was refuelled, for some months you could actually hit it and there wouldn't be enough burn-up of the reactor to cause a plume," Mr Hayes said. "There are those who might feel this is an appropriate time to cap the program."
But against the temptation for Washington hawks, Mr Hayes pointed out the risk of a retaliatory North Korean conventional strike across the Demilitarised Zone against South Korea.
He said a strike would almost certainly cause the antiquated North Korean reactor, whose core is shielded by graphite, to burn out, removing a scientific record of past plutonium production.
Only by drilling out samples of the graphite core and measuring radioactive decay could nuclear scientists determine with a high degree of certainty how much plutonium had been produced in past. "If you don't have that base line, you'll never have closure on whether there's up to two weapons' worth of plutonium floating around somewhere in North Korea," Mr Hayes said.
| You would hit the reactor so you could cap any future plutonium production. PETER HAYES, arms control expert |
Washington has been guarded about moves it would make if Pyongyang continues to refuse to return to six-nation nuclear disarmament talks in Beijing and moves to build up or test its nuclear arsenal.
A week ago, US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said the US would take action if Pyongyang did carry out a nuclear test. However, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has also said the US possessed sufficient deterrence to counter any likely acquisition of nuclear weapons by the North - suggesting that Washington has come to accept that there will be no early solution and is looking to contain the Pyongyang threat.
China has meanwhile expressed frustration with President George Bush for having "destroyed the atmosphere" it had been building for a new round of talks by repeatedly criticising North Korean leader Kim Jong-il as a "tyrant".
Pyongyang's defiant stance is bringing some gains as a nervous South Korea tries to entice it back to the negotiating table with economic incentives. Seoul will start shipping 200,000 tonnes of fertiliser today to help boost the North's spring grain crop, citing "humanitarian and compatriotic" reasons. It will also resume ministerial-level talks with Pyongyang on June 21.
The World Food Program this week described the food situation in the North as very serious.
But in three days of talks with North Korean officials this week, the South failed to win any commitment for resumed participation in the Chinese-sponsored six-nation talks, stalled now for 11 months.
Seoul had offered new incentives to the North if it would agree to limit and eventually eliminate its nuclear weapons and production plants. That is the aim of the Beijing talks, which involve the two Korean states with China, Japan, Russia and the United States.
In the crisis like this, the real game is how our side can make up our mind before it is too late, not what our adversary does. The adversary's intention is pretty much clear and consistent over the years.
The real tragedy is not that the other side can wreak some havoc, but how empty-headed "useful idiots" allowed the eventual damage to snowball.
Oh, we'll be more than happy to provide their military-industrial underground complex with a 100 foot thick glass ceiling. You think you've seen mad, you haven't seen mad until someone actually lobs a nuke at the States. The fury at 9/11 will seem but the annoyance of suffering a fender-bender.
Sure, but we've sure let the enemies arm up to seriously. It seems we're far more interested in santifying the koran than actually stopping enemy states from gathering nukes.
I'm sure after they use a few here, we'll bitch and maybe lob a few back. But by then, it's too late. It's probably already way too late, going back to clinton times.
These are not dropped from space, only high altitude. The energy of the gravity fall of say 50,000 feet, combined with the mass and very small aerodymanic cross section is all that is required to bring these silent darts to a very high speed with enormous kinetic energy at impact....
Sheesh, is this any way to grow a "Peace Garden"????
Do you know that the policy goal of N. Korea this year is to concentrate on military industry and agriculture, nothing else. Somebody gave the following interpretation:
N. Korea had developed a nuke warhead which can be mounted on missiles, which can threaten Japan, not just S. Korea. They will test it, and be slapped with sanction. They plan to stick it out by growing enough to survive the duration.
If he is correct, S. Korea is sending fertilizers which would make N. Korea last during the coming sanction after the test of miniaturized nuclear warhead.
Any body who sends ANYTHING to North Korea, on the eve sanctions on them, is 'before the fact', 'propping them up'. Same goes with profits from amphetamine and sea food/crab sales in Japan, or other ways they rake in money around the world, either above board or in the shadows.
Sounds good to me.
Some great points. Bush actually came out pretty strong (verbally at least) against NK as his administration came up. Next thing, though, we have 9/11 on our hands and major military operations.
Kim's turn is coming. Have no doubt about that. For all the ROK's appeasement, loose NK WMD is a serious threat to the US. NK has shown reckless brinkmanship in the past. The key to shutting this down outside of war is not appeasement, but economic pressure on China.
It is funny how China postures and throws its hands up in the air, saying it can't PERSUADE the Norks to stand down. Funny, the Chinese have never had any problems persuading the Tibetans, the Indians or the Vietnamese amongst many others. China is playing this out to the full, but can stop it any time they want to. Time to start throwing their cheap goods out of Walmart, Target, K-Mart, etc.
Funny how China tells us the Norks want a nuke program and "bilateral nonagression pact" (hahaha) with the US because they feel threatened (and they should be threatened, as the bozo dork running the country has killed of ten percent of the population in the last ten years); if it's all about peace and quelling the perception of threat, maybe we should throw in a few nukes to Taiwan, too, until PRC signs a nonagression pact with them.
We need to wake up on this issue.
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