While the world's attention focuses on the possibility of war with Iraq, North Korea - one of the world's last Stalinist outposts - has suddenly upped the stakes by engaging, big time, in what a United Nations official rightly labels "nuclear brinksmanship." Getty Images...

The paradox: North Korea, one of the WarBush's axis of evil powers, may end up stopping the insane invasion of Iraq ---- North Korea must be laughing as it exposes little George's limited IQ

The entire Iraq invasion and war becomes a real joke as North Korea continues to thumb its nose at little George.  North Korea has two nuclear weapons and has the capacity to build four more.  Iraq has no nuclear weapons and yet little George is preparing to invade Iraq.

What is most interesting to me is that Japan is not up in arms about the actions of North Korea.  South Korea is reacting but not very loudly.  Why do the nations in the region who are most threatened by North Korea sitting back and doing very little.

As each day goes by, it becomes more and more apparent that Warmonger Bush has painted himself into a corner which was beyond his brain pan's ability to foresee and way beyond his ability to resolve.

If little George continues to pursue Iraq and allow Korea to continue to do as it pleases with its nuclear arms program, then no one in the world is going to have any doubt that the war in Iraq is about oil.

If little George starts sending the military to Korea, then he is going to have another $200 million venture on his hands.  There is no way that little George can carry off two major military campaigns against Iraq and North Korea at the same time.  

The problem is that it is taking all the top people in George's administration to work on other nations to support his war in Iraq.  These people cannot fly back and forth across the world trying to build support for a second war against North Korea as well.  It is just too big of a project.

Maybe little George is going to send a couple of dozen cruise missiles with nuclear warheads to wipe out all the North Korean nuclear reactors.  That would end the problem but of course the nuclear fallout over South Korea and Japan would not be a good thing.  

All the reserves are being readied for a war in Iraq.  So who is left to go to North Korea.  

And wouldn't it be interesting if right when little George launches his war in Iraq, the North Koreans begin an invasion of South Korea?  The North Korean war machine is ready and on alert as it has been for over fifty years.  There are only 37 thousand American troops on the DMZ.  The North Koreans could overcome them in a few days.

Wouldn't that be a hell of a scenario:  Bush invades Iraq and North Korea kills and captures all the Americans on the DMZ.

At any rate, it seems to me that with North Korea doing as it pleases, the United States looks weak.  It will not matter how well America does in taking over Iraq, any military defeat at all in Korea will be a major embarrassment to the United States.

Maybe North Korea will be to little George what the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba was to Kennedy.

Lastly, never forget that the Chinese are not going to allow little George to take over North Korea.  The Chinese are a sleeping dragon that little George would do well not to provoke.  If the United States is going to take over the Middle East beginning with Iraq, why shouldn't the Chinese believe they have a green light to take over all of Korea both North and South?

John WorldPeace
December 27,  2002

N. Korea rebuked by U.N., S. Korea

U.S. senators call for talks on nukes

VIENNA, Austria -- The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency and South Korea's outgoing president Thursday criticized North Korea's moves to restart its nuclear arms program, accusing the communist regime of engaging in "nuclear brinkmanship" and of "aggravating" an international standoff.

The criticisms came as two influential U.S. senators urged the Bush administration to begin talks with North Korea, a step the White House has insisted it will not take until the government in Pyongyang abandons efforts to build nuclear bombs.

In Vienna, Austria, Mohammed ElBaradei, director general of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, warned that North Korea "has no current legitimate peaceful use for plutonium. Restarting its nuclear facilities without appropriate safeguards, and toward producing plutonium, raises serious nonproliferation concerns and is tantamount to nuclear brinkmanship."

In Seoul, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, in some of his harshest comments in weeks, told a special Cabinet meeting Thursday that South Korea "can never go along with North Korea's nuclear weapons development."

Kim, whose term ends in February, was the architect of a new policy of engagement that brought a historic summit between the North and South in 2000. Fearful that South Korea would be caught in the middle of any confrontation between the United States and North Korea, he wants his country to take the initiative to stem the dangerous downward spiral of relations.

"We will not be pushed aside," he reportedly told the Cabinet meeting.

An aide to South Korean President-elect Roh Moo-hyun told reporters Thursday that he will send a special envoy to Pyongyang sometime next month to try to open a dialogue. The trip would most likely take place after an anticipated visit to Seoul after the new year by Assistant U.S. Secretary of State James Kelly, an aide to Roh said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Early today, Roh issued a statement warning the North that reactivating the reactor could endanger the communist state's own safety. "Whatever North Korea's rationale is in taking such actions, they are not beneficial to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in northeast Asia, nor are they helpful for its own safety," Roh said.

Even as condemnations of its actions continued, North Korea moved 1,000 fresh fuel rods into a 5-megawatt research reactor at its Yongbyon nuclear complex, the IAEA reported. The move was seen as another step toward resuming the nuclear program that the North officially halted in 1994 under an international agreement.

At the same time, North Korea issued its most conciliatory statement yet about the nuclear maneuvers.

"Our measure has nothing to do with plans to develop nuclear weapons," said a commentary on Radio Pyongyang. "Our republic constantly maintains an anti-nuclear, peace-loving position."

North Korea has made several moves toward restarting its nuclear complex since last weekend, when it began shutting down U.N. surveillance cameras and unsealing locks that have been in place for the past eight years.

IAEA officials said Thursday's move was significant, although the reactor is expected to need one to two months of repair before becoming operable. The reactor, which produces plutonium as a byproduct, requires 8,000 rods to operate.

Moving the fresh fuel rods is a far less dangerous step than if the North Koreans had begun work on another installation at the same complex: a nuclear fuel-reprocessing lab, which can extract plutonium from spent fuel. There are 8,000 spent fuel rods at the site. U.S. officials say they believe the North Koreans could build new nuclear weapons by the second half of 2003.

IAEA inspectors are still at the complex and have not been asked to leave, according to the organization's Vienna headquarters.

U.S. officials have been talking with other countries in the region about the brewing crisis but have insisted that they don't intend to resume talks with the North Koreans until Pyongyang signals a willingness to honor its commitments not to resume a nuclear program.

Expressing concern, two key senators urged the administration Thursday to intensify its efforts to end the standoff.

"Our strategy now has to be one of multilateral engagement," Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in an interview on NBC's Today.

He and Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., the current chairman of the committee, urged the administration to begin such an effort with South Korea, Japan, Russia and other Asian powers.

Biden warned of the dangers of allowing North Korea to manufacture nuclear bombs.

"If they get six or eight more nuclear weapons, who knows what they will do with them?" he said.

Some U.S. officials believe the North Koreans probably already have one or two nuclear weapons. South Korean officials believe North Korea's goal is to prove to the world that it should be taken seriously.

The United States and key allies stopped delivery of oil to North Korea in October after the country admitted it had a secret uranium-enrichment program.

December 27, 2002 

Commentary           nypost.com     

While the world's attention focuses on the possibility of war with Iraq, North Korea - one of the world's last Stalinist outposts - has suddenly upped the stakes by engaging, big time, in what a United Nations official rightly labels "nuclear brinksmanship."

Yet some are urging President Bush urgently to negotiate with Pyongyang. They miss a vital point.

North Korea agreed eight years ago (on President Bill Clinton's watch) to refrain from developing the weapons that would allow it to follow through on its threat to envelop Japan and South Korea in "a sea of fire."

Then, too, President Bush already offered Pyongyang a "comprehensive dialogue" last year.

But it has become clear that North Korea violated the Clinton pact - for which negotiator Jimmy Carter, ludicrously, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize - virtually from the git-go.

Now the Communist nation has upped the ante by reopening a plutonium processing plant and disabling international monitoring equipment.

That may enable Pyongyang to start building nuclear weapons (it's already thought to have two) within months.

There are various theories about what North Korean leader Kim Jong Il actually is up to.

Some say he's out to embarrass President Bush - who has named Pyongyang as part of the Axis of Evil - by moving the spotlight off Iraq.

Others say he hopes to force Washington to the bargaining table, where he can extract major concessions in the form of a non-aggression treaty and economic aid.

But the Bush administration is rightly adamant in refusing to play that game: It's refusing direct talks until North Korea unmistakably abandons its nuclear program.

"We will not bargain or offer inducements for North Korea to live up to the treaties and agreements it has signed," says Secretary of State Colin Powell, denouncing Pyongyang's "threats and broken commitments."

America must defend its own military and strategic interests - which are, first and foremost, to halt the acquisition of nuclear weapons by belligerant rogue nations.

But America is not the only nation whose strategic interests are threatened by North Korea's nuclear buildup and saber-rattling. Yet those nations most directly threatened - Japan, South Korea, Russia - are reluctant to stand tough and force Pyongyang's compliance.

South Korea in particular has been wary of taking any action it fears might endanger reconciliation talks. (It might feel differently were the United States to start bringing home the 37,000 GIs now stationed there.)

Nor has China - which seeks major economic partnership with Washington - been willing to do its part to restrain its Communist neighbor and partner.

All those nations are content to sit back and let Washington deal with this crisis - but each has at least as much to lose as the United States should a nuclear-armed North Korea suddenly go berserk.

And each, in its own way, is subject to persuasion from Washington.

It's time to apply some.

That is, the Carter/Clinton way - pray and pretend - didn't work.

It's time to ratchet up the pressure.

North Korea Reportedly to Expel Inspectors

AP

SEOUL, South Korea (Dec. 27) - North Korea said Friday it will expel U.N. inspectors who have been monitoring its mothballed nuclear facilities, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

The North will expel two nuclear inspectors dispatched by the Vienna-based U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, Yonhap said, quoting a statement carried by the communist state's official Korean Central News Agency.

Yonhap, which monitors the North Korean news agency, did not provide further details.

North Korea's move would deprive the U.N. nuclear watchdog of its only remaining means to monitor whether the communist state's recent decision to reactivate its frozen nuclear facilities would lead to development of nuclear weapons.

The U.N. agency reported Thursday that North Korean workers had moved fresh fuel rods to a storage site near a Soviet-designed reactor at Yongbyon, a nuclear complex north of the capital that that U.S. officials say could produce nuclear weapons within months.

With Friday's announcement, North Korea appeared to move even closer to reactivating nuclear facilities mothballed in a deal with the United States in 1994.

North Korea claims that it is restarting the reactor to get badly needed electricity after the United States and its allies cut off oil shipments in response to recent revelations that the North Koreans had been covertly pressing ahead with efforts to develop nuclear weapons in violation of the 1994 agreement.

But U.S. officials say that power to be obtained from the 5-megawatt reactor is negligible, and North Korea is widely believed to be pushing the dispute to the brink of crisis in order to extract concessions at the negotiating table.

Earlier Friday, South Korea's President-elect Roh Moo-hyun said North Korea's defiant attitude could make it difficult for him to continue his predecessor's policy of seeking reconciliation with Pyongyang after he takes office in February.

''Whatever North Korea's rationale is in taking such actions, they are not beneficial to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia, nor are they helpful for its own safety and prosperity,'' Roh said in a statement.

North Korea's government has repeatedly called for a nonaggression treaty with the United States, though economic benefits are also a priority for the destitute country.

North Korea state media accused Washington on Friday of using the nuclear issue as a pretext for invasion. An English-language commentary by the KCNA referred to recent comments by U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld asserting that the United States has the military strength to wage war against Iraq and North Korea at the same time.

''The U.S. much-publicized assertion that North Korea scrap its nuclear program first is nothing but a pipe-dream as it calls for disarming (North Korea) under the absurd pretext of its nuclear program and then launching a surprise attack on it to overthrow its political system,'' KCNA said.

During an inspection tour of U.S. and South Korean air force units, outgoing President Kim Dae-jung called for a stronger military alliance between the two allies to cope with threats raised by North Korea's nuclear development.

''We should be fully prepared for any emergencies and maintain a tighter joint defense system to back up a peaceful solution to North Korea's nuclear issue,'' he said.

On Friday, Australia added its voice to an international chorus of concern, announcing it had shelved plans to open an embassy in the communist state.

''We have put all of our further evolution of our relationship with North Korea on hold,'' Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Arguing that the reclusive nation could best be influenced to become a responsible member of the world community through dialogue, Australia resumed diplomatic relations with North Korea in May 2000 and had planned to open an embassy in Pyongyang within the next six months.

Despite the international outcry, North Korea has shown no signs of backing away from its , announcement earlier this month that it plans to restart its plutonium-based nuclear program.

In the past week North Korean workers removed seals and surveillance cameras installed by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency.

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