| Thanks to 3dc for the tip. |
The assertion, if true, would dramatically escalate the nuclear challenge from one of the world’s most isolated and dangerous states. In an announcement, North Korea said that the test had been a “complete success.” But it was difficult to tell whether the statement was true. North Korea has made repeated claims about its nuclear capabilities that outside analysts have greeted with skepticism.
| There is the seismic evidence... |
The North’s announcement came about an hour after detection devices around the world had picked up a 5.1 seismic event along the country’s northeast coast. It may be weeks or longer before detectors sent aloft by the United States and other powers can determine what kind of test was conducted. Ned Price, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said in a statement that American officials “cannot confirm these claims at this time.”
But he said the White House expected “North Korea to abide by its international obligations and commitments.”
| Expect all you like, Ned, but the Norks have a record of not doing so... |
In recent weeks, the North’s aggressive young leader,
The announcer added that for the North to give up its nuclear weapons while Washington’s “hostile policy” continued would be “as foolish as for a hunter to lay down his rifle while a ferocious wolf is charging at him.”
Satellite photographs analyzed by 38 North, a Washington research institute that follows the North’s nuclear activity closely, showed evidence of a new tunnel being dug in recent weeks.
Another test by itself would not be that remarkable. The North is believed to have enough plutonium for eight to 12 weapons, and several years ago it revealed a new program to enrich uranium, the other fuel for a nuclear weapon. But if the North Korean claim about a hydrogen bomb is true, this test was of a different, and significantly more threatening, nature.
In recent weeks,
Outside analysts took the claim as the latest of several hard-to-verify assertions that the isolated country has made about its nuclear capabilities. But some also said that although North Korea did not yet have H-bomb capability, it might be developing and preparing to test a boosted fission bomb, more powerful than a traditional nuclear weapon. Weapon designers can easily boost the destructive power of an atom bomb by putting at its core a small amount of tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen.
Lee Sang-cheol, the top nonproliferation official at the South Korean Defense Ministry, told a forum in Seoul last month that although Mr. Kim’s hydrogen bomb boasts might be propaganda for his domestic audience, there was a “high likelihood” that North Korea might have been developing such a boosted fission weapon.
And according to a paper obtained by the South Korean news agency Yonhap last week, the Chemical, Biological and Radiological Command of the South Korean military “did not rule out the possibility” of a boosted fission bomb test by the North, although it added it “does not believe it is yet capable of directly testing hydrogen bombs.”
For the Obama administration, which only six months ago
The North has refused to enter the kind of negotiations that Iran did. Unlike Iran, which denies it has interest in nuclear weapons, the North has forged ahead with tests and told the West and China it would never give them up.
Mr. Obama, determined not to give the country new concessions, has neither acknowledged that North Korea is now a nuclear power nor negotiated with it. The White House has said that it would only restart talks with the North if the goal — agreed to by all parties — was a “denuclearized Korean Peninsula.”
China has also failed in its efforts to rein in Mr. Kim.
| China has the ability to curb its dog whenever it wants. That it has not done so to this point suggests that there has not been on attempt to "rein in" Pudgy in any significant way. It's all theater done for the benefit of gullible Western analysts... |
With the test conducted Tuesday night — Wednesday in North Korea — three of the North’s four explosions will have occurred during Mr. Obama’s time in office.
| They'll still blame Bush... |
| Developed in cooperation with Iran... |
| That's just an engineering problem... |