[Peace-discuss] who's crazy?
Dlind49 at aol.com
Dlind49 at aol.com
Tue Dec 24 09:06:53 CST 2002
WASHINGTON (Dec. 24) - The United States could make war against North Korea
even during a conflict with Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said.
But he said diplomacy, not the threat of military action, guides the Bush
administration's efforts to contain Pyongyang's resurgent nuclear ambitions.
The Bush administration demanded on Monday that North Korea halt plans to
restart a dormant nuclear reactor that was critical to that country's nuclear
weapons program.
It pressed the communist government in Pyongyang to restore U.N. surveillance
gear that it dismantled at a nuclear reactor at Yongbyon and not to restart
the facility.
North Korea said the reactor will be used to generate electricity.
Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon news conference that North Korea should not take
the current focus on Iraq as tacit approval to go forward with its weapons
programs.
``We are capable of fighting two major regional conflicts,'' Rumsfeld 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.''
Rumsfeld said no military action was imminent to halt Pyongyang's nuclear
efforts, and White House officials said the United States intends to pursue a
diplomatic course to persuade North Korea to abandon efforts to expand its
nuclear arsenal.
Discussions on the North Korean question are under way with China, Russia and
other countries, the State Department said.
North Korea has said it needs the power the reactor would produce, but
officials said the reactor would provide negligible electricity to the
country's grid. Instead, U.S. officials accused Pyongyang of planning to
restart the facility to support weapons programs.
The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, a U.N. monitoring
agency, said Pyongyang unsealed a storage chamber at Yongbyon this weekend
that holds 8,000 irradiated fuel rods. Plutonium in the rods could yield four
or five nuclear weapons within months, experts say.
A senior administration official said the United States does not believe the
North Koreans have opened the canisters containing the fuel rods.
North Korea said Monday the nuclear issue could be settled if Washington were
to sign a nonaggression treaty.
But the United States, angry because North Korea resumed its nuclear efforts
despite a 1994 agreement to abandon it, sees little reason to negotiate.
``We will not give in to blackmail,'' State Department spokesman Philip
Reeker said Monday. ``We're not going to bargain or offer inducements for
North Korea to live up to the treaties and agreements that it has signed.''
Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., a senior Armed Services Committee member, said he is
seeking visas to lead a congressional delegation to the North Korean capital
for talks. ``When you don't have dialogue, that is when the problems develop,
and that's my concern with North Korea,'' Weldon said.
Asked whether the U.S. military has drawn up plans to make war on North
Korea, Rumsfeld said, ``One of the assignments of the department is to
prepare for a whole host of contingencies. We tend not to get into details as
to what those contingencies might be.''
The Clinton administration considered bombing the Yongbyon site in 1994
before North Korea agreed to shut it down. Under the 1994 agreement, North
Korea pledged to freeze and eventually dismantle its nuclear weapons program
in exchange for international aid to build two power-producing nuclear
reactors.
Supposed to have been completed by 2003, the light-water reactors are far
behind schedule.
``The situation today is somewhat different from then,'' Rumsfeld said,
without elaborating.
Relations between the countries have deteriorated rapidly since President
Bush took office. Shortly afterward, Bush suspended contacts between the
governments and ordered a full review of relations. In his 2001 State of the
Union address, he placed North Korea in an ``axis of evil'' with Iran and
Iraq.
Rumsfeld rejected the notion that Bush administration statements had forced
North Korea to renew its nuclear efforts, saying the United States now
believes Pyongyang has had a clandestine nuclear program for years.
``Do you think the idea that it's the rhetoric from the United States that's
causing them to starve their people or to do these idiotic things or try to
build a nuclear power plant?'' he asked.
Rumsfeld also accused North Korea of operating concentration camps. Human
rights groups say the camps hold political prisoners.
U.S. intelligence officials believe North Korea made one or two nuclear
weapons in the 1990s with plutonium. They also are concerned that Kim's
government could provide nuclear materials and expertise to other nations
unfriendly to the United States.
Nuclear weapons also can be made with enriched uranium, and on Oct. 4, North
Korea admitted to American diplomats having a program to enrich uranium to
weapons grade.
In response, Bush halted oil shipments the United States had provided the
energy-poor country under the Clinton-era agreement. The North Koreans then
said they would restart nuclear energy facilities shut down as part of the
pact.
12/24/02 08:17 EST
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