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North Korea Admits Nuclear Weapons Program
Fox News | 10/16/02 | Brytani

Posted on 10/16/2002 4:42:48 PM PDT by Brytani

Breaking News on Fox

Fox has just confirmed North Korea has admitted to the United States that they have a secret nuclear weapons program. This breaks a treaty signed with the Clinton Administration, in exchange for N. Korea not having nuclear weapons, the US agreed to build non-lethal nuclear plants for them.

Once again, Clinton's treaties turn out to be worth as much as his word.


TOPICS: Breaking News; Foreign Affairs; Government
KEYWORDS: billlegacyclinton; foxnews; northkorea; nuclearweapons; treaty
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To: Lion's Cub
I believe that you have it backwards. China has no intention of nuking us yet. She's just rattling sabers for Iraq. Why? She'd be quite happy to let Iraq nuke us and let Iraq suffer the retaliation. She's trying to weaken the US through proxy.

I believe you're wrong. The Chinese are afraid of us. Why? Because we are a lot stronger than them now.

Now, picture this. Bush says he feels threaten by little Iraq and 'regime changes' and disarms them before Iraq could throw a stone at us (which they would never dare if not threaten but that's a different story).

Now, what lesson would China and N Korea would learn out of this? I'll tell you:

STRIKE FIRST OR YOU MAY LOSE YOUR CAPABILITY.

Thanks W!

281 posted on 10/17/2002 4:17:26 AM PDT by A Vast RightWing Conspirator
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To: A Vast RightWing Conspirator
North Korea admits secret nuclear weapons program

The New York Times WASHINGTON -- Confronted by new American intelligence, North Korea has admitted that it has been conducting a major clandestine nuclear-weapons development program for the past several years, the Bush administration said Wednesday night. Officials added that North Korea had also informed them that it has "nullified" now its 1994 agreement with the United States to freeze all North Korean nuclear weapons development activity.

North Korea's surprise revelation, which confronts the Bush administration with a nuclear crisis in Asia even as it threatens war with Iraq, came 12 days ago in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. A senior American diplomat, James A. Kelley, confronted his North Korean counterparts with American intelligence data suggesting a secret project was under way. At first, the North Korean officials angrily denied the allegation, according to an American official who was present.

The next day they acknowledged the nuclear program and according to one American official said "they have more powerful things as well." American officials have interpreted that cryptic comment as an acknowledgment that North Korea possesses other weapons of mass destruction.

Administration officials refused to say Wednesday night whether the North Koreans had acknowledged successfully producing a nuclear weapon from the project, which uses highly enriched uranium. Nor would administration officials who briefed reporters Wednesday night say whether, based on American intelligence, they believe North Korea has produced such a weapon.

"We're not certain that it's been weaponized yet," said another official, noting that North Korea has conducted no nuclear testing, which the United States could easily detect.

The idea of a North Korean nuclear arsenal immediately alters the delicate nuclear balance in Asia and confronts the Bush administration with two simultaneous crises involving nations developing weapons of mass destruction: one in Iraq, the other on the Korean Peninsula.

"We seek a peaceful resolution to this situation," a senior administration official said Wednesday night, briefing reporters as news of the North Korean program began to leak. "No peaceful nation wants to see a nuclear-armed North Korea."

Yet the administration's demands on North Korea on Wednesday night were muted. "The United States is calling on North Korea to comply with all of its commitments under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and to eliminate its nuclear weapons program in a verifiable manner," an American official said. There was no discussion of the consequences if that appeal was ignored, even though the announcement came only hours after President Bush issued some of his toughest and most ominous-sounding warnings yet to Iraq.

Bush said nothing about North Korea on Wednesday. Instead, the State Department dealt with the issue through a statement issued by Richard A. Boucher, the state department spokesman, and through briefings by midlevel officials. Boucher said Kelly and Under Secretary of State John R. Bolton had been dispatched "to confer with friends and allies about this important issue." He also said, "This is an opportunity for peace-loving nations in the region to deal, effectively, with this challenge."

At a meeting Tuesday of the National Security Council, Bush and his aides decided to handle the North Korean declarations through diplomatic channels, a senior official said.

Both Japan and South Korea, now in the midst of a presidential election campaign, wanted to avoid confrontation, according to several officials.

But American officials said that there was no early indication that North Korea would allow in inspectors or give up its program. One senior official characterized the North Korean attitude at Pyongyang meeting as "belligerent," rather than apologetic, even while it admitted violating the 1994 accord to freeze its nuclear weapons development.

The strongest action the administration announced was the cessation of talks that could lead to economic cooperation. "The United States was prepared to offer economic and political steps to improve the lives of the North Korean people," Boucher said in his statement Wednesday night, "provided the North were dramatically to alter its behavior across a range of issues," including its weapons programs, its past support for terrorism, and "the deplorable treatment of the North Korean people."

But in deciding on a very measured response the White House was also implicitly recognizing the reality of how North Korea differs from Iraq. It may already have nuclear weapons and it has a huge army and conventional weapons capable of wreaking havoc on South Korea. Moreover, even the prospect of military action against North Korea conducted at the same time the administration is considering an attack on Iraq would also mean that the Pentagon would be

confronted by the prospect of fighting a two-front war.

Deeply impoverished, its military might waning, North Korea has long sought nuclear capability. It pursed an aggressive nuclear weapons program in the 1980s and 1990s that resulted in a major confrontation with the Clinton administration in 1994. Officials who served at the time said they believed that the dispute was on the verge of veering into war. At one point in 1994, President Bill Clinton ordered Stealth bombers and other forces into South Korea, to deter a pre-emptive North Korean strike.

But a deal was struck, partly with the intervention of former President Jimmy Carter, one of the initiatives that won him this year's Nobel peace prize. The result was a 1994 agreement under which North Korea committed to halting its nuclear work, and the United States, Japan and South Korea, among others, agreed to provide the country with fuel oil and proliferation-resistant nuclear reactors to produce electric power.

While ground has been broken on the project, the reactors have yet to be delivered, and now that agreement appears dead, officials said Wednesday night.

Around the time that the Clinton administration negotiated the 1994 accord, the Central Intelligence Agency estimated that the country's nuclear weapons facilities at Yongbyon, a program that was based on reprocessing nuclear waste into plutonium, had already produced enough material to manufacture one or two weapons.

If the North Korean assertions are true -- and administration officials assume they are -- the government of Kim Jong Il began in the mid- or late-1990s a secret, parallel program to produce weapons-grade material from highly enriched uranium. That does not require nuclear reactors, but it is a slow process that the United States may have discovered through Korean efforts to acquire centrifuges. That is also the process that the administration believes the Iraqis are undertaking.

"We have to assume that they now have the capacity to build many more weapons, and they may have already," said a senior official who has seen the intelligence.

It was unclear why North Korea admitted to the weapons program. Only last month, Kim Jong Il admitted that North Korean agents had kidnapped Japanese decades earlier, and apologized. Some of those kidnapped returned to Japan for visits only this week.

But one official who was in the room on Oct. 4 when the North Korean deputy foreign minister, Kang Sok Joo, described the existence of the nuclear program said, "I would not describe them as apologetic."

The administration's decision to keep news of the North Korean admission secret for the past 12 days while it fashioned a response appears significant for several reasons. Bush and his aides have clearly decided to avoid describing the situation as a crisis that requires a military response at a time when dealing with Iraq is the No. 1 priority.

"Imagine if Saddam had done this, that he had admitted -- or bluffed -- that he has the bomb or is about to have one," one senior official said. "But there's been a decision made that the system can take only so much at one time."

The response also has much to do with the vulnerability of America's allies. Every American administration that has considered military action against North Korea -- including the Clinton administration in 1994 -- has come to the same conclusion: It is virtually impossible without risking a second Korean War, and the destruction of Seoul, South Korea. North Korea maintains a vast arsenal of conventional weapons and hundreds of thousands of troops.

But dealing with the problem diplomatically will be a tremendous challenge, at a time when the administration is already at odds with many of its closest allies over how to deal with Saddam Hussein. "The big problem for the U.S. is now not only how to deal with a potentially nuclear armed North Korea, but how to manage the frayed nerves and new calculations of its neighbors," said Kurt Campbell, who directs Asian studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in Washington, and who served as a senior defense officials in Asia.

American officials used the past dozen days to formulate a common response. At a press conference in South Korea on Thursday morning, local time, Lee Tae-sik, deputy minister for foreign affairs, urged North Korea to abide by a series of agreements it now clearly violates: the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the 1994 agreement, and a "joint declaration" signed with South Korea to keep the Korean Peninsula nuclear-free.

"All the issues including the North's nuclear program should be resolved through peaceful methods and by dialogue," Lee said.

Wednesday, senior administration officials said that inside the White House theories have sprouted about what North Korea hoped to gain from its declaration.

According to one theory, discussed widely in the Pentagon and the State Department, North Korea's leaders want to demonstrate that they cannot be bullied by the United States. "Here they are declaring they have the stuff to make a nuke," one official said. "Whether they have one, or they are bluffing, we don't know for sure. But the message is, 'Don't mess with us."'

Another theory holds that North Korea is seeking attention, as it has done many times before, hoping to trade its nuclear capability for economic aid. That worked in 1994, according to this theory. But it could backfire now, in a post-Sept. 11 environment, and it would seem to undercut North Korea's recent efforts to attract Western investors.

The revelation comes just eight days before Bush is scheduled to meet with Asian leaders at the annual Pacific economic conference, to be held in Mexico. Bush will now have to use the conference to build support for both his Iraq and his North Korea policies, even if he is advocating very different strategies in the two cases.

282 posted on 10/17/2002 4:55:43 AM PDT by RobFromGa
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To: secretagent; Paul Ross; belmont_mark
You may have it pegged. The US also gives N. Korea fuel oil in exchange for "cooperation", and they get cranky about interruptions:

I think the DPRK is hoping the US will raise its appeasement ante in a bid to keep the Clinton appeasement agreement in place. The Bush Administration might covertly attempt to do so with offers of increasing its already substantial hundreds of millions of dollars worth of aid to North Korea which make it the biggest recipient of US foreign aid money in Asia with the exception of Israel. However, based on a report in the Washington Times, I am more optimistic about the Bushies dropping out of the North Korea appeasement pact. I have been advocating they do so for the past two years so this would be a great victory for the anti-Communist, anti-appeasement cause.
283 posted on 10/17/2002 5:13:25 AM PDT by rightwing2
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To: Brytani; All
See related "flashback" threads ...
2001 FLASHBACK - Jimmy Carter's role in the 1994 Nuclear agreement witn North Korea (my title)
1994 FLASHBACK - While Clinton focuses on domestic affairs, U.S. world leadership suffers

1999 FLASHBACK - Clinton may soon announce easing of N.Korea sanctions

284 posted on 10/17/2002 5:13:43 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
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To: RobFromGa
You should post this as a separate thread.

This one is supposed to be the Clinton-whining thread.

285 posted on 10/17/2002 5:17:57 AM PDT by A Vast RightWing Conspirator
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Comment #286 Removed by Moderator

To: Salman
The words read
"Comrades! Brothers and Sisters! Without the fatherland there can be no happiness.
All arise for Victory! Give everything to the front!"
Compared to the propaganda N. Korea usually spews out, this is very mild commie fare.

As I live in Korea, I can give some background on the two Koreas during these last few years:

The South Korean policy towards the DPRK was declared by the president as the "Sunshine Policy" which translates as "Throw money at the commies until I get a Nobel Peace Prize and a stunning, historical breakthrough." Inching out Clinton in the 2000, President Kim Dae Jung finally received the Nobel Peace Prize after almost a decade of fishing. Think peanut farmer(actually, he has never held a steady job), only with much more power, ability to muscle business directly, and well in to the dotage of old age(over 80).

Up to 2002 North Korea only had to make a few gestures and would be literally showered in money, including about 400 million dollars worth of bribes deposited directly in to the dictator's pocket through Hyundai Marine Transportation.
During those years there was the "symbolic" June 15th summit declaration, and the "symbolic" meetings of seperated families, but if you cut out the immense amount of hype the South Korean government was churning out, nothing substantial happened, and there had been similar events during the '70s.

However North Korea has gone into hyperspeed during the year 2002. I'd say that after 8 years of liberal pampering, North Korea has been shocked by Bush's axis of evil speech and even more so by the extremely fast connection between talk and military action in Afghanistan, the US's utter disregard for international opinion, and is alarmed by Bush's feints towards human rights abuses in North Korea. To Kim Jung Il, the US is the maverick cowboy of international politics.

Also it is election year in South Korea, and Kim Dae Jung's New Millenium party has been wiped out by historical porportions in the June and August congressional elections(the rival GNP now has complete control of the legislature) and Kim Dae Jung's heir is dropping like a rock through the polls. The government has already tightened purse strings on "aid" toward the DPRK.

To placate the US and try to tip the scales of the presidential, our neighbors to the north have been busy, even apologizing for a naval skirmish that happened earlier this year(first time it has apologized, ever), cozying up to the Japanese, sponsoring more high-level meetings, laying out plans to open its economy, finally getting started on a railroad that will connect the Koreas to Russia, and sending a large contigent of athletes to the South Korea sponsored Asian Games(which returned to the DPRK two days ago).

287 posted on 10/17/2002 5:42:55 AM PDT by sterl_ryu
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To: AmericanInTokyo
AIT,

In past threads dealing with the North Korean initiative to improve relations with Japan by returning the Japanese captives they had kidnapped, I cautioned you that we should give North Korea the time to see whether they were sincere or just playing games. Well, it looks like they have made their position abundantly clear by their admission of a long established nuclear weapons program in flagrant violation of the NPT treaty they had signed.

You are right to label this development as being extremely serious just as you were right to be as distrustful of North Korean motives as you were in those past threads. This is the same old North Korea.

Regards,

Boot Hill

288 posted on 10/17/2002 5:43:35 AM PDT by Boot Hill
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To: SrBahamonde
Back on this thread now, after about nine hours.

Another worrisome development of course is if they have weaponized to the capability of a suitcase nuke. For sure they have been infiltrating Japan like crazy with their small craft with even smaller, evasive rubber boats for landing. They could have well smuggled in either this kind of weapon or some kind of bacteriological or chemical weapon. They have a significant espionage and sabotauge network in Japan, through hundreds of agents directed through Chongryong "Federation of Korean Residents in Japan" organization from Pyongyang. The receive their nightly orders on the AM dial every night with five digit code, on 850 on the dial.

North Korea can for sure blackmail or attempt to blackmail Japan, or at least cause great damage to our military bases in Japan.

Of course, the alQaida could also in the future turn to North Korea like a supermarket for nuclear materials to construct a weapon. North Korea is without a doubt the most state terrorist country in the world, worse than Iraq IMHO.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea's exploits in kidnapping, bombing civilian airliners, turning a whole nation into brainwashed automotons, assassinating S. Korean cabinet ministers and First Ladies, bombing jumbo jets over the Adaman Sea, spreading counterfeit US fed reserve notes throughout Asia IN DIPLOMATIC POUCHES, introducing amphetimine into Japan for hard currency and to destroy Japanese youth, tunnelling into S. Korea, sending spy subs into S. Korean waters, operating a series of terrible concentration camps along the Chinese border, starting wars, launching long range missiles right over Honshu, Japan, conducting terrorist camp training, etc., means to me that we should have concentrated on a coup d'etat or tactical attack on their nukes, chems and bios, long, long, long ago.

289 posted on 10/17/2002 5:50:43 AM PDT by AmericanInTokyo
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To: Boot Hill
Thank you for your kind words. I recall we did have some disagreements here on FR! ;-)
290 posted on 10/17/2002 5:53:11 AM PDT by AmericanInTokyo
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To: sterl_ryu
So you are in S. Korea? Anyong hashimnikka?

I'll be over there in about five weeks, fyi.

291 posted on 10/17/2002 5:55:50 AM PDT by AmericanInTokyo
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To: sterl_ryu
To placate the US and try to tip the scales of the presidential, our neighbors to the north have been busy, even apologizing for a naval skirmish that happened earlier this year(first time it has apologized, ever), cozying up to the Japanese, sponsoring more high-level meetings, laying out plans to open its economy, finally getting started on a railroad that will connect the Koreas to Russia, and sending a large contigent of athletes to the South Korea sponsored Asian Games(which returned to the DPRK two days ago).

You and I (and others here) could smell this for what it eventually was.

Problem is, you, I and others (and our US Administration thank goodness) are not that stupid. North Korea should have known better. A miscalculation. Glad they spilled the beans before Undersecretary Kelly in Pyongyang on Day II (even though I am sure we had the goods on them). Good to hear it from their own North Korean lips dripping with the saliva of thirst for conquest and regional domination.

292 posted on 10/17/2002 5:58:20 AM PDT by AmericanInTokyo
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To: AmericanInTokyo
DPRK have been trying to build cascade centrifuges without success. May have a program but no chance they have any nuclear capability. Cannot even keep cars and trucks on the road, army marches in plimsolls because it has no boots. Troops have no ammo. Make pre-stressed concrete beams by filling trenches with concrete and throwing in steel rods.

I have been there twice. Their industry is primitive and anything they had was Russian / Chinese. Now they have few friends apart from Ukraine / Russian satellite mafia selling them duff equipment etc.,

Best sources of supply to them are Swedes (Ericsson telephony)and French - biggest overseas market for French (especially vintage) cognac in world. Swiss agir chemicals pulled out years ago because of no payment - hence agri problems, no pesticides, fertilisers etc., Called in Dutch for help but they wanted $ up front not forthcoming.

What they do have is oil off the West Coast - see Meridian oil. V secure internal comms. They have own fibreoptics plant, courtesy UK.
293 posted on 10/17/2002 6:03:37 AM PDT by unending thunder
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To: unending thunder
Asahi in Japanese tonight states that with the frozen (in principle) North Korean nuke program, the Yangbyon facility was stopped in it's tracks. If construction continued, it surmises, then N. Korea would have enough plutonium producing capability to manufacture nearly 50 nuclear weapons per year.

The question is, now, if that production was never shut down and was shifted to another location, just how much production capability do they have? Are these empty threats? It has been said in congressional committee that N. Korea is also suspected of illegal, underground importation of plutonium from Russia, and that it could have engaged in illegal export itself.

294 posted on 10/17/2002 6:08:40 AM PDT by AmericanInTokyo
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To: AmericanInTokyo
I.A.E.A. IN VIENNA JUST ISSUED AN IRATE STATEMENT THAT SUCH N.KOREA PRODUCTION is a violation of IAEA safety standards and they ask for immediate cessation. I would suspect they will demand free inspection. Japan said they will ask N. Korea to cease their nuke development at a meeting in Malaysia 29 Oct. with NKorean leaders.
295 posted on 10/17/2002 6:13:00 AM PDT by AmericanInTokyo
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To: AmericanInTokyo
France has just registered its strong concern. Said the very reason it has diplomatic relations with Pyongyang was their promise to cease nuke development. Seems rather angry. Said the balance of peace in Asia region at stake.

IAEA also said they demand ability to inspect at any time, just as they expect to do so in Iraq.

296 posted on 10/17/2002 6:15:10 AM PDT by AmericanInTokyo
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To: Kozak
They are under construction, and are based on the CE design. I'm not sure how complete they are, but I'm reasonably sure they haven't taken fuel delivery yet.
297 posted on 10/17/2002 6:42:18 AM PDT by MrNeutron1962
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To: MrNeutron1962
Pyongyang, October 7 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of the DPRK today gave the following answers to questions put by KCNA as regards the visit to the DPRK by a special envoy of the U.S. President: As already reported, James Kelly, U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, visited the DPRK from October 3 to 5 in the capacity of special envoy of the U.S. President. Expecting that there would be a way of solving the pending issues between the DPRK and the U.S. through dialogue as the Bush administration told us that it would dispatch the special envoy in a bid to explain its Korea policy and stand toward the resumption of dialogue, we received him and heard his words. However, the special envoy, raising "issues of concern", took a high handed and arrogant attitude by claiming, that the DPRK-Japan relations and inter-Korean relations as well as the DPRK-U.S. relations would be smoothly settled only when the DPRK first meets the U.S. unilateral demand such as nuclear and missile and conventional armed forces and "human rights" issue. The U.S.-raised "issues of concern" are nothing but a product of its hostile policy towards the DPRK. After all, the special envoy's explanation made it clear that the Bush administration is pursuing not a policy of dialogue but a hardline policy of hostility to bring the DPRK to its knees by force and highhanded practice. Since it has been confirmed that the Bush administration refuses to delist the DPRK as a member of the "axis of evil" and a target of "its preemptive nuclear attack" and still maintains its unilateral hardline policy of hostility towards the DPRK, the latter clarified to the envoy its principled stand towards such position before his departure from here. Such unchanged policy of the U.S. compels the DPRK to take all necessary countermeasures, pursuant to the army-based policy whose validity has been proven.
298 posted on 10/17/2002 6:51:02 AM PDT by AmericanInTokyo
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To: AmericanInTokyo
Surprise Surprise.


299 posted on 10/17/2002 7:03:29 AM PDT by AmericanInTokyo
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Comment #300 Removed by Moderator


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