North Korea Admits to Having Nuclear Weapons

steelvadi writes "North Korea has now admitted to possessing nuclear weapons. Government officials there claimed that they are needed as defense from an increasingly hostile attitude from Washington. It was also stated that N. Korea will not be reentering negotiations on disarmament for the foreseeable future. "

Comments

Korea

[shreevatsa]

In Korea, only old people have nuclear weapons.... Uh, nevermind :)

Re:Korea

[Edward Faulkner]

If you look at history, I think this would be topped only by Hitler.

If you look at history, you sound confused.

20th Century Civilians Killed:
Stalin=4x10^7
Mao=3.5x10^7
Hitler=1.2x10^7
Ot toman Empire(Armenian Genocide)=2x10^6
Pol Pot=1x10^6
Saddam=6x10^5
Hutu-Tutsi Rivalry=5x10^5

As you can see, Hitler's not even close to first, and Saddam is way down at the bottom. Educate yourself on history. It's the only antidote to propaganda.

Sources:
this article
khmer rouge
Saddam

Re:Korea

[calstraycat]

Have you forgotten the mass genocide Saddam has commit, even to his own people? If you look at history, I think this would be topped only by Hitler.

Not even close. You would have to have a very limited knowledge of history to come to that conclusion. Every heard of Pol Pot? That's a example from recent history. There are hundreds of other examples if you look back thousands of years.

I'm still amazed people buy into the "we had bad intelligence" argument regarding WMDs. Heck, Karl Rove even admitted that the WMD angle was just the most sellable excuse rather than the real reason. The plan for invading Iraq was developed in the late nineties. When the folks who developed the plan came into power in 2000, the invasion of Iraq became inevitable. It would have occurred had their been no 9/11. It would have occurred even if the WMD claims were discredited in advance. The "we need to save the people of Iraq from this evil dictator" excuse was not mentioned until it became clear that there were no WMDs.

For the record, I'm fine with the idea that some people feel that it's the responsibility of the US to save people from evil dictators even though I don't think we should. But, I'm surprised when act as though the "we must save the people of Iraq" was the original intention.

I also don't agree with you on North Korea. They scare the hell out of me. I just don't understand your position. It was important to invade Iraq (which was not a threat to the US and had essentially no viable army and no WMDs) simply to save it's people from their leader, but we need not worry about a sophisticated, first-world nation with a massive army and nuclear weapons?

Now, their dictator is completely nutz, but very predictable. US intel knows that.

Where did you get that idea? Do you have inside sources? Since when are crazy people predictable? You want to blame US intelligence blunders for the WMD fiasco re: Iraq, but then turn around and say we should trust US intelligence re: N. Korea?

Saddam is an evil man. But, Iraq was never a threat to the US or it's allies. North Korea is a threat to the US and our allies. I, for one, don't believe it's the responsibility of the US to save nations from their leaders. I don't believe in nation building. I do believe in protecting the nation from real threats. North Korea is a real threat.

consequence of us foreign policy

[Robocrap]

i saw this post regarding iran's nuclear weapons program yesterday, that is relevant to korea as well: "Ending Iran's WMD programmes will not prevent invasion from a hostile foreign power. The only way to ensure their security is to have a suitable deterrent. Their neighbours Iraq scrapped their WMD programmes and soon as they were suitably defenceless they were invaded. No state rogue or otherwise will now believe that complying with UN resolutions or appeasing a more powerful enemy will prevent attack. The USA's policy of 'Might is Right' is now to be cascaded throughout the world." -James, Newcastle, UK

Re:I think "admits" is probably the wrong word.

[nearlygod]

By "proof", do you mean "mushroom cloud"?

team america

[ack154]

"It was inevitibible..."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"Inevataball..."
"One more time?"
"INEVITABLE! Jesus christ! Why are people so fucking stupid?!"

So?

[smooth wombat]

So what if North Korea has nukes? That's a good thing.

Same thing with Iran. I'm hoping they get nukes within a few years.

Why? Because people with nukes don't do stupid things (excluding the U.S. of course).

I've been saying this for a long time. Despite what the neocons would have you believe having nukes is a great way to make a country get its act together. In the case of North Korea they are protecting themselves from attack since any country that would attack them knows what to expect.

On the other side North Korea knows that if it attacks someone what it can expect in return.

The same with Iran.

To those who say that countries like North Korea and Iran having nukes is a bad thing because they could sell/give the info to terrorists, think again. In the case of Iran the last thing the ruling mullahs want is to give a nuclear device or supplies to someone and have that same person/group turn around and set off that device in the middle of Tehran.

On another point, take a look at India and Pakistan. They've had seven major wars since the two countries gained independence from Great Britain. However, as soon as India had their nuclear tests and Pakistan followed close behind, both countries have had several meaningful discussions on how to reduce tensions and learn to live peacefully with one another.

I know it's an unpopular opinion but a country like North Korea or Iran having nukes is a good thing. It forces all sides to not be stupid.

Re: Checklist

[Black Parrot]

Lesse...

North Korea:
Dictator: Check
Oppressed people: Check
No legitimate elections: Check
WMDs: Check
Threatening to the West: Check

Send in the troops! What's that? We're going to use diplomacy instead? We're going to try to avoid tens of thousands of deaths and injured? Wow, good thinking. Too bad about that other country...

You neglected the all-important:

Has major portion of world's oil supply: nope.

don't worry

[e**(i pi)-1]

We don't worry about the N. Korea nukes: CNN has
this morning already moved to a more relevant story:
"Prince Charles to marry Camilla Parker Bowles".

I wonder if Kim Jong-Il is dead?

[Malor]

You know, a thought occurred to me the other day. Remember that huge explosion in NK last year? Some sources have claimed that it was a failed assassination attempt. Since that time, as far as I know, we haven't seen ANYTHING of KJI. There have been multiple signs of his hold on power weakening, like portraits being taken down for awhile. Further, his 'appearances' have been video-only, wearing clothes that are at least two years old.

So what if he's dead, killed in that explosion, and they've been covering it up? NK is exactly the kind of place to try to do something like that.

Just a thought....

Re:I wonder if Kim Jong-Il is dead?

[madaxe42]

Kim Jong-Il has always been dead. We have always been at war with EastAsia....

In all seriousness, it doesn't matter if KJI is dead or not - the North Korean regime is here to stay - no amount of military force will change that - it is *far* too deeply ingrained in the majority of the populace there. Having visited NK some years ago on a tourist visa (which is like gold dust) I was, I must confess, rather surprised by what I found. Generally, in urban areas, the quality of life was good - party members lived comfortably, others less comfortably, but a lot better than much of what you'll see in the western world. We weren't allowed into the countryside, however, so.....

Short of a popular revolution, which isn't going to happen, nothing will change the situation there. It's perfectly possible that they have a nuclear capability, but they aren't quite the mad-cap nation the western media seems to wish to portray them as.

The degree of control held over the populace by the state there is astounding - it would be extraordinarily hard for anyone to organise any kind of dissent - the vast majority are party supporters, and the last thing you want to do is criticise the government in front of someone who can make you disappear.

Juche is their way of life. They have no real wish to expand, they just want to be left alone. For now, at any rate.

Re:Thank Goodness...

[MooseByte]

"You don't realize that we had to invade Iraq just so that it would not become another North Korea?"

We need to invade any country that might someday start up a viable nuke program? Wow, by your logic that sure is a LONG list of countries that need invading ASAP. And STILL completely ignores the countries that now have or are very close to REAL WMD, not phantoms painted on an oil-rich country.

And do you know why those countries accelerated (pun?) their efforts? They realized that America does NOT go after countries that have the Bomb. They also realize that America can't open a new war front. We're too tied down in a country that posed NO immediate threat to us, so the guys with the real nuke programs get to pursue them at will. We're currently toothless, and they know it.

Anyway, laugh it up, all the dead soldiers appreciate it.

Irony - you should look it up sometime.

Re:I think "admits" is probably the wrong word.

[rokzy]

are you American?

well, outside of America, everyone knew Saddam DIDN'T have WMDs. the inspectors didn't find a single thing.

if you were surprised that troops didn't find any WMDs then you were watching the wrong news channel before the war.

Re:Thank Goodness...

[Mr. Slippery]

You don't realize that we had to invade Iraq just so that it would not become another North Korea?

Hussein's Iraq was in no position to do anything but dream of becoming another North Korea. As the complete failure of the search for WMDs shows, the sanctions worked perfectly adequately to keep them from developing nukes.

Meanwhile, the invasion demonstrated to the world that the U.S. will not be restrained by law, ethics, or common sense; so if we don't like your nation, the only way you might be secure against U.S. invasion is to develop WMDs.

Re:I think "admits" is probably the wrong word.

[Enoch Root]

1. They had WMDs? Oh, do you mean the chemical weapons they received from the US and other allies to use on Iran in the 80's, which they turned on the Kurds, and which they were forced to disarm after the first Gulf War?

2. Ok, so... According to you, the UN didn't find anything in Irak, NOT because they weren't there despite the US's best efforts to find them after they marched in claiming to have 100% PROOF that they did, BUT because the UN inspectors were inept? Sure, buddy. Whatever you say.

You're not entitled to your own "facts"

[Engineer-Poet]

For instance, this is BS:

Korea - we want to develop nuclear power

No they didn't. North Korea's Yongbyan reactor is only good for about 5 megawatts electric (30 MWthermal); it does not even have power lines running to it. That reactor was about weapons from the get-go.

For a better albeit incomplete analysis of the rest, like the "help", see here. For a timeline, see this.

Re:I think "admits" is probably the wrong word.

[squiggleslash]

Oh, get off your high horse. It's so good to see that you are so willing to ignore two important facts:

Oh, now come on, as analogies and the rewriting of history goes, that takes the cake.

Iraq did have WMDs and used them on its own people... in the 1980s. This it did without any comeuppance. It wasn't until Iraq invaded Kuwait that the entire issue became one of concern to the rest of the world. The invasion was reversed, Iraq surrendered, agreed to destroy its WMDs, and promptly - under the guidance of the UN weapons inspections - promptly did. Meanwhile Saddam continued to terrorise his own people, just without using WMDs. The only silver lining was that the group terrorised became smaller and smaller until, by the end of the 90s, Saddam ran around a third of Iraq.

Your analogy is entirely wrong. If this really were a DEA/drug dealer thing, it'd happen a bit like this: The DEA goes in at the start, with an agreement to let the drug dealer avoid stiffer penalties if he destroys his drugs. The DEA watches him do this, but then the two reach a stalemate where the DEA hangs around on the off chance there's something it missed and the dealer is upset about the invasion of privacy this ensues. Eventually he kicks the DEA out, holes himself up in his house for a few months surrounded by armed police, finally lets the DEA back in, the DEA confirm that they believe there are no drugs in the house but would appreciate a little more cooperation from the sulking dealer, and finally the cops raid the house anyway.

Note the analogy is stupid, but that's because you came up with it.

Hans Blix was right. The right wing morons who insisted he and his team were stupid, incompetent, or whatever, really owe him a massive apology, and, FWIW, a debt of thanks. Yes, thanks. Because if he and his predecessors hadn't done their job, Iraq would have had WMDs, and there'd be a hell of a lot of dead Americans, British, Italians, and other allies outside Baghdad.

Re:Thank Goodness...

[Otter]

In short, the Clinton deal engaged North Korea and would have worked to stop or slow their weapons programs. Bush stopped the Clinton deal's funding and changed to a hard-line approach, and now we see ourselves in the present situation.

I think you have the chronology backwards there. The Bush cutoffs took place after North Korea violated their treaty obligations. (It was because they restarted plutonium production, wasn't it?)

But, you're right -- the current nukes (if they exist, which I'd doubt) wouldn't have been made with the light water reactors.

Geopolitics for dummies on Slashdot...

[GPLDAN]

Home of the unqualified opinion!

Well, here's mine. It hasn't been brought up yet, so let's see if anyone considers it insightful...

The Chinese are not our enemies in this issue. They actually fear a totally destabilized N. Korea as well. That they came to the rescue in the Korean War belies a much more complicated truth about the relationship between Koreans and Chinese. China, on the verge of becoming the 2nd superpower economically, is really not all tha keen on seeing Kim Il Jong do things like test fire intermediate range missiles into the Sea of Japan. They know that quite a few U.S. boomers are riding the coast of Korea, and will have Trident IIs arriving on target in minutes if we think a nuke had been actually launched, at either the West Coast (which we know they cannot yet reach) or Japan. And they know that the Chinese would not respond.

The worst case scenario really is, that NK's increasing starving and helpless population is thrust under some stupid pretext into an attack on S. Korea and a nuclear weapon is moved to the front and detonated and then denied. Again, I think the U.S. would go nuclear if that happened.

Prosperity of S. Korea combined with an internal assassination campaign is probably Washington's strategy. It's best to fight this one using spies and satellites, a conventional invasion would be pointless and unlike Iraq, we don't want to assert control over the region.

Re:I think "admits" is probably the wrong word.

[mrtrumbe]

Deep breath. Calm down, everyone.

I agree with you that many people outside the US--and many liberals in the US--thought that Saddam had aspirations of WMDs and probably had a few stashes of weapons with rather limited destructive potential. I thought that myself. What I disagree with is the conclusion that was drawn from that information by the Bush administration: that Saddam's aspirations and small amount of weapons made him so dangerous to the US and other countries that we needed to go to war to stop him. I never believed that. And I believe my perception of the situation was vindicated after the war. Saddam's weapons programs were in shambles and his "stockpiles" of weapons were puny to non-existant. Clinton and Chirac may have recognized that Saddam COULD be a danger, left unchecked, but neither of them thought he was so dangerous as to undertake a war because of it. He was contained. His power and danger was very limited. They recognized this. Bush and company didn't.

This, obviously, doesn't speak to the humanitarian aspect of the war. Yes, the Iraqi people are better off without Saddam in power. But do you want the US to be the world police? Do you want the US to right every wrong in the world (or are we even capable)? I don't want that. Clinton had this tendency, as well, and I didn't like it one bit. There will always be injustice in the world, but the US can't be held responsible for all of it. How about letting an international body figure out when intervention is needed and deploy international troops in that case (UN anyone?). Why not work with the UN to get more EU or Chinese troops in the UN peacekeeping forces? Why not try to better the UN to make sure it answers humanitarian crises in a timely and efficient manner? It would be better than taking the responsibility (and risks, international PR problems, etc.) on our shoulders alone. Bush combined his cowboy "go it alone" attitude with Clinton's "world police" tendencies and ended up painting us into a international relations corner. Not a great strategy, if you ask me.

Further, on the point of the "Oil for food" program, you should really look up the US's involvement in the program from it's start shortly after the first Iraq war. The US helped set up the program and benefitted from the program for years before it was determined that it wasn't in our best interests. Sure, at the time of the second Iraq war we weren't involved in the program any longer, but many out there like to paint the picture that the US's hands were clean. I don't buy it. Backdoor dealings for power/money are the norm in US politics. Why would you assume those principles wouldn't apply to our international dealings as well? We were involved in the program and my guess is that we benefited from it.

Taft

Re:Korean War ('scuse, "police action")

[MetaPhyzx]

not to mention the US actually failed to live up to the previous agreement:
Korea - we want to develop nuclear power
USA - we'll help you with technology for nuclear power so you don't need to develop it yourself ...many years later...
Korea - er, hello. where's our help?
USA - fuck you
Korea - fuck you too then

Not quite. Clinton and the IAEA negotiated to place cameras in the reactor. To behonest, it was a fair arrangement. The imminent change in policy after George Bush took office, and his lack of PERSONAL policy detail (being in front of dealing with other nations as a personal engagement; palm pressing; making them feel they were a part of the process) immediately made the already paranoid NK government renege.

Thier feeling was now they were no longer dealing with an American administration that believed in exhausting diplomacy and would allow the NK's to save face (by exchanging the ability to give up weapons for aid and a security guarantee), but one that if pushed, strike.

NK almost seems to belong on another planet in how it's citizens behave; from all accounts it's closed society is in a different world. I remember seeing a documentary recently where the power went out in a family's home and then blinked back on, only to hear "Damned Americans", like we had something to do with it.

The regime maintains power through fear and the projection of military strength while the basic necessites for citizens are ignored. Without external aid, this might be the one legitimate regime that may decide "you know, fuck it. Let's take someone else with us."

So they felt that by holding the region "hostage" by becoming a nuclear power, they can: One, guarantee thier own hold on power as the US and UN would dare not invade lest Seoul or Tokyo get turned into one big sheet of glass and two, demand food and supply aid to feed and maintain control of its' population.

To us, now we're damned if we do aid them, because we're caving in and damned if we don't, because I've got a feeling the Asian nuclear proliferation problem may get a lot worse. Japan has made minor rumblings about getting a deterrent, and they can have a bomb at any time within six months of starting a program.

Clinton mulled a cruise and air missle strike to take away NK's ability to make weapons, and opted for the placement of cameras in the hope that a diplomatic response coupled with aid would work. Plus, he knew hitting NK could result in seoul being behind enemy lines in 48 hours in the event of a war.

Bush has fanned flames, and then with tunnel vision
zeroed in on Iraq since his election, while NK might, just might, pose the biggest threat to democracy and stability in a number of the worlds critical economies: China, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia, India, Australia to name the big ones. Ignoring this, and possibly fighting the wrong war could seriously come back to haunt us.

Coupled with the perception in the world that to get any respect from Washington you have to have weapons, what can we expect? Which is why Iran isn't CLOSE to thinking about giving up thiers, knowing they're that close.

What's that old adage about catching more flies?

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, please.

In the last several years the US has showed the rest of the world that it can easily invade any country that it pleases based on fake premises, even if that decision is not aproved by the UN security counsil (if you do not remember, Bush told them before invading Iraq that he really doesn't give a shit about what they think).

Now, I am not in support of dictatorships like the one led by Saddam Husein or Kim Jong, but lets be honest about this: no WMDs were found in Iraq. The entire premise of the war which was sold to the citizens of this country and to the rest of the world was completely incorrect. Did Bush at any time apologize to the citizens of this country or to the rest of the world about this? Did he say, I am sorry, we made a mistake? I do not remember, and if he had, I sure would remember it.

What is the alternative of a hostile regime such as North Korea in this current position? Of course they have to develop WMDs right now, they need them right now, because they do not have the military power to withstand an invasion of the US. N. Korea's WMDs will make Washington think twice before confronting them directly (relax, even if this happens, this would be at least 10 years down the road... US forces are too ocupied and spread out for a second direct offensive).

My 3c.

Good.

[Catbeller]

Good for them.

It's not illegal for North Korea to develop nuclear weapons.

Bush has tossed away several treaties we've already signed regarding development of nuclear weapons. We're not special children of God's army, so the privilege is open to other nations now.

They are busy starving, and not menacing us.

They have been explicitly informed by Bush that he is going to make a point of destroying them. They have an excellent case for defending themselves. They have a logical case that possessing the weapons deters an invasion by Bush. By Bushian logic, we haven't invaded, so possessing the nukes keeps us out. Q.E.D.

They aren't going to attack anyone with the damned things. It would be instant suicide. CNN would be roasting radioactive weenies on their ashes in a month, chuckling at the wonderfulness of it all.

Wrapup: they have the weapons for the exact same reason the U.S. claimed it needed ours. Deterence.

The evil or not-evil of North Korea is irrelevant. Bush et al support Uzbekistan, which boils its dissidents alive in oil. Evil is a convenient label for removing people you don't like.