Response to Ralph Sato / NKZone comment
They did not reactivate the reactor until George W Bush unwisely terminated the AF in 2002.
The reactor remained intact and fully able to resume reprocessing whenever N. Korea declared itself sufficiently provoked, which it did when North Korea admitted violating the Agreed Framework (which called for North Korea’s complete denuclearization) and Bush refused to simply tolerate it and keep paying up. Meanwhile, N. Korea was perfecting a massive chemical arsenal by testing it on prisoners, lobbing missiles over Japan, buying more artillery to point at South Korea, and enriching uranium, which it later transferred to the A.Q. Khan network and Libya.
Bush’s decision to terminate the AF and his emotional State of the Union speech naming NK as a member of the “axis of evil” though NK does not have any affiliation to the Moslem Middle East . . .
Exhibit A, North Korean technical assistance to the Iranian nuclear program since the 1990s.
Exhibit B, a report that Iran recently sold Russian-made cruise missiles to North Korea.
Exhibit C, North Korean missiles intercepted on the way to Yemen in 2002.
Exhibit D, a New York Times report that North Korea and Pakistan jointly tested a nuclear weapon in Pakistan in 1998.
Exhibit E, consensus that North Korea was the source of Syria’s SCUD-C missiles and a report that North Korea has traded dual-use equipment with Syria that could be used for biological weapons.
Exhibit F, Saddam’s plan to buy North Korean SCUDs with a range exceeding U.N. limits, stopped only when the invasion was imminent and North Korea opted to keep Saddam’s down payment.
Exhibit G, a complete North Korean missile factory intercepted on the way to Libya.
Exhibit F, uranium hexafluoride made in North Korea, found in Libya. Ad nauseum.
Who’s really being emotional here? Is there any amount of evidence that would persuade you that North Korea is a real proliferation threat?
. . . so angered the NK that they then pulled out of the NPT . . . .
Actually, they originally pulled out of the NPT on March 12, 1993. Does that make this Bill Clinton’s fault?
The question of uranium enrichment processing being done at another hidden site has never been proven with any evidence or convicing argument. The NK official who supposedly bragged about it to James Kelly has denied that he made such a categorical statement.
You don’t consider the statement of a U.S. diplomat relating the N. Korean admission to be “any evidence?” What evidence supports the North Korean version? Why do you consider their story be more credible than Kelly’s, particularly given that we’ve actually found some of the uranium, and presumably acquired knowledge about it by exposing the A.Q. Khan network?