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| Korea |
| U.S. Expert Unconvinced on North Korea Nukes |
| 2004-01-21 |
| EFL An American nuclear weapons expert who recently visited North Korea’s main nuclear complex said Wednesday he saw no convincing evidence that Pyongyang can build a plutonium-based nuclear device, but it most likely can make plutonium. Since they haven’t tested one, I’ve lways been skeptical as well....but plutonium in a dirty bomb would be nasty Siegfried Hecker, a former director of the Los Alamos, N.M., nuclear research laboratory, also said he remained unconvinced that the North Koreans could convert any such nuclear device into a nuclear weapon. Hecker, who visited North Korea’s secretive Yongbyon nuclear site on Jan. 8 as part of an unofficial U.S. delegation, was speaking to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The North Koreans claimed that day that they had reprocessed 8,000 spent fuel rods to extract plutonium, Hecker told the committee. He said the visiting delegation could not definitively substantiate the reprocessing claim, but said he saw evidence that the North Koreans had the technical expertise to do that. Another former official on the trip, former State Department official Jack Pritchard, wrote in a New York Times op-ed piece published Wednesday that all 8,000 rods had been removed from the nuclear site, in what Pritchard called evidence that the communist nation may have restarted efforts to build atomic bombs. Just in time for famine and unrest...wonder if they could feed all their starving with the money spent on their international mischief Hecker said he told senior North Korean officials that "there is nothing that we saw at the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center that would allow me to assess whether or not the DPRK possessed a nuclear deterrent if that meant a nuclear device or nuclear weapon." |
| Posted by:Frank G |
| #3 No this is wrong. Newsday says that we only have a decade or so before Kim has us by the short ones. Quick enter Emergency Negotionation Plan Bravo. Stand-by ... execute!!! Here are some details: ... That worst-case scenario is based on the assumption that North Korea could soon finish building a new reactor and a uranium enrichment plant, the IISS reported. Under the more likely scenario that it takes several years to complete those facilities, the boost in bomb-making capacity would come near the end of the current decade, said John Chipman, the institute's director. "There is still some time for diplomatic efforts to halt and eliminate North Korea's nuclear arsenal while it remains limited to a handful of nuclear weapons," he said. "As time elapses, however, a diplomatic solution could become more difficult, as Pyongyang acquires additional strategic bargaining chips" and greater uncertainty make verification more complicated, he said. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-1-21 5:12:10 PM |
| #2 Here's a short mnemonic I scream at my monitor once or twice a day. "Absence of Evidence is NOT evidence of absence." Think any of the ignoramii at the New York Times or ABC News is willing or able to comprehend something this simple? Didn't think so. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2004-1-21 12:45:20 PM |
| #1 Hecker said he told senior North Korean officials that "there is nothing that we saw at the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center that would allow me to assess whether or not the DPRK possessed a nuclear deterrent if that meant a nuclear device or nuclear weapon." No shit, Einstein. Does this guy really believe that the NorKs would put all their cards on the table for all to see??? I suspect that Mr. Hecker had two traveling partners - one with his hands constantly over his ears, and the other with his hands constantly over his mouth. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-1-21 12:25:08 PM |