*Previously, North Korea had reportedly told U.S. negotiators in private talks that it had nuclear weapons and might test one of them. The North’s U.N. envoy said last year that the country had “weaponized” plutonium from its pool of 8,000 nuclear spent fuel rods. Those rods contained enough plutonium for several bombs.
But Thursday’s statement was North Korea’s first public acknowledgment that it has nuclear weapons.*
well I guess the cat is officially out of the bag.. does that mean we’ll slowly see the rhetoric against NK dying down and all eyes more towards Iran? Afterall the Bush regime doesn’t attack nations they know can fight back..
North Korea had a good crop harvest last year. That means that their people probably will not starve this winter so they can afford to dealy while they work on their bomb program. And Kerry did not get elected, now they have to deal with Bush so they will pout and shout 'til next winter when they need food.
well, that's Ohioguy's New Year's wish out the window... he was gagging for NK to be bombed... and the rest of those bleeding foreign sounding countries and peoples too...
My comment was based on a consistant pattern of behavior. When North Korea NEEDS something it negociates so that it’s people will not overthrow the government. When it does not NEED something it is more blligerent.
Care to add soemthing to the debate, based on facts or opinion, or have I gotten under your skin a little, sonny?
Little Kim needs his behind spanked. I say we put the same sanctions as Iraq. Starve the people so they can blame the dictator and than go bomb the crap out of their country and liberate the poor North Koreans.
They already have the sanctions on, but it is not as easy to invade DPRK. This crazy ******* the moment he get the wind of an invasion will lob bombs at SK and JP.
i was only trying to drag you up from gutter level… but, yes, i do get the impression that there’s very few things that you really care about… keep taking the medication…
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld served on the board of a Swiss company that in 2000 sold light water nuclear reactors to the government of North Korea, which critics—including Pentagon hardliners—say could be used to produce nuclear weapons.
Rumsfeld’s involvement in the $200 million deal with the Zurich-based engineering company ABB is seen as an embarrassment to the Bush administration…
2000: director of a company which wins $200m contract to sell nuclear reactors to North Korea
2002: declares North Korea a terrorist state, part of the axis of evil and a target for regime change
Hey genius boy. Light Water Nuclear reactors theoretically do not produce radioactive by-products that can be used for a bomb, that is why the Clinton Administration approved the deal. Just because it has the word "nuclear" and "Rumsfeld" in the same article does not mean anything.
Clinton reached this deal with the NKs and forgot the Reagan phrase"Trust but Verify". Clinton did not verify that North Korea ever stopped it's existing nuclear production ergo the problem today. Rumsfeld is a convenient left wing whipping boy, but the Clinton administration cut the worst deal in the world with the NKs, and we are paying for that today.
And, the reactor in question was never completed, and never operational.
“Many members of the Bush administration are on record as opposing Mr Clinton’s plans, saying that weapons-grade nuclear material could be extracted from the type of light water reactors that ABB sold.”
“The type of reactors involved in the ABB deal produce plutonium which needs refining before it can be weaponised. One US congressman and critic of the North Korean regime described the reactors as “nuclear bomb factories”.”
“The policy was vehemently opposed by George W. Bush and his foreign policy advisors—including Rumsfeld’s deputy, Paul Wolfowitz—who argued that the light water reactors could produce weapons-grade plutonium.”