N.Korea Tells U.S. It Made Bomb-Grade Plutonium

[Khephra]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea has told the United States that it has completed reprocessing fuel rods into bomb-grade plutonium and U.S. officials are seeking to verify the claim, the White House said on Tuesday.

In what amounted to another threatening move by Pyongyang in its standoff with Washington, North Korean diplomats at the United Nations informed their U.S. counterparts last week that reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel rods has been completed.

"Now this is something that we are evaluating. As you know North Korea has made a lot of claims in the past and it's not something at this time that we can confirm the accuracy of," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

The United States went to war against Iraq over Saddam Hussein's suspected weapons of mass destruction. But so far Washington still wants a peaceful solution leading to North Korea's verifiable dismantling of its nuclear weapons program, while not ruling out a military option.

more.................

http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=3093565

[molly]

1. How much oil is in North Korea?

[tjdee]

2. Where's the new OSAMA tape?

Man, NK gets the bummest rap around the Bush administration. The Bushies consistently ignore NK, and that may prove to be a mistake.

But then, the Bushies are so focused on...um...what are they focused on?

Isn't it time for a new Osama tape or something?

If Bush screws up and gets us into a North Korean deal, I'm officially going to hate him.

[oneighty]

3. Could Kim be

teasing Bush*, driving him insane?

180

[Caution]

4. You really have to wonder about this...

What the hell could North Korea's leadership be thinking? Here is an administration that is under fire at home, losing credibility, with teh populace starting to question the leadership. So what does North Korea do? Instead of using this to its advantage to get the admin a quick win, they tell the administration that they have weapons grade plutonium? Ummm...hello? Am I expected to believe that the North Korean leadership doesnt realize this is a perfect excuse for the administration to rally the people against an actual threat? Certainly the military is occupied elsewhere but you threaten people in the US with nuclear weapons...well just look what we did to a country that didnt actually have nuclear capability? all it took was a couple of well-placed lies to the American public and we rallied behind Bush* and destroyed a nation of 40 million people in a couple of months. A real? tangible, vocalized threat? Either the leadership is incredibly stupid or there is something I'm missing.

[DagmarK]

5. Kim il Jong is not the most sane person on earth.......

but he is MORE sane than the madmen who run OUR country.

Who can argue with Jong when he says, "uh, gee, the only defense against the USA IS to have WMD. If you don't have 'em, you're screwed."

[DagmarK]

6. Kim il Jong is not the most sane person on earth.......

but he is MORE sane than the madmen who run OUR country.

Who can argue with Jong when he says, "uh, gee, the only defense against the USA IS to have WMD. If you don't have 'em, you're screwed."

NK wants us to go to war with them......because...as the USA kept saying all last fall, NK should be handled multi-laterally. So...we get in a big snafu with NK, and the entire pacific rim has to shut US down.....

This is all play for the final set up for the all theaters of war against the USA. The Near and Middle East will be against us; the pacific rim will be against us. And leading the pack against us will be Russia, China and India. And I suppose Pakistan will have to join the big boys too if it has any sense.

This is all long range war planning, IMO

[Randi_Listener]

7. Official White House response:

BRING THEM ON!!

[clar]

8. Although this is so scary I feel

like sticking my fingers in my ears and singing loudly "I can't hear you", I don't think the MALadministration is actually hankering for a war on the Korean Penninsula. Even these assholes know that it would be a major catastrophe on their doorstep, not some distraction or rally round cause. In addition, Congress is not going to just roll over on this one. Having said that, bushco, with their spectacular undiplomacy has screwed up. Admiral Perry, having spoken to some in the admin. thinks that Bush views Kim il Jong as-you guessed it- EVIL, and therefore thinks that negotiation would be- you guessed it- IMMORAL. More fundamentalist thinking. So it is possible that the whole thing could spiral out of control. If it does, it will be a disaster for Bush, but that's almost beside the point. The real disaster would be the hundreds of thousands, possibly 1 million plus who would perish. There is no best case scenario.