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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (58361)	11/22/2002 7:01:00 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

For goodness sake go read Ken Pollack or Kanan Makiya and stop arguing as if your determined ignorance of the situation in Iraq should persuade others that nothing is amiss there I wholeheartedly support the weapons' inspections. As Blix has stated, they have far more sophisticated technology than even five years ago with which to detect wmds, etc. I haven't had the opportunity to read Ken Pollack's work.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (58361)	11/22/2002 7:08:06 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

This seems a more immediate concern: CIA says N.Korea could produce more nuclear arms Reuters miami.com WASHINGTON - North Korea is building a plant that by the middle of the decade could produce enough uranium for two or more nuclear weapons a year, a CIA analysis said on Friday. "We recently learned that the North is constructing a plant that could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for two or more nuclear weapons per year when fully operational - which could be as soon as mid-decade," the unclassified analysis said. The CIA previously estimated that North Korea had one or two nuclear weapons using plutonium produced before 1992. The recent analysis was sent to Congress and obtained by Reuters. North Korea stopped plutonium production in 1994 under the terms of an agreement with the United States. "We have assessed, however, that despite the freeze at Yongbyon, the North has continued its nuclear weapons program," the CIA analysis said, referring to the site of a plutonium reprocessing plant. Under the 1994 pact, North Korea agreed to freeze nuclear weapon activities in return for a $5 billion package that included two light-water nuclear power reactors and 500,000 tons annually of heavy fuel oil. But a revelation in recent months that North Korea was pursuing a program to produce highly enriched uranium, a key ingredient in nuclear weapons, prompted a U.S. decision to suspend fuel oil shipments in an effort to force the North Koreans to abandon their nuclear arms program. If North Korea abandoned the 1994 agreement it could resume production of plutonium. Reprocessing spent reactor fuel in storage at Yongbyon "would recover enough plutonium for several more weapons," the analysis said. "The United States has been suspicious that North Korea has been working on uranium enrichment for several years. However, we did not obtain clear evidence indicating the North had begun constructing a centrifuge facility until recently," it said. "We assess that North Korea embarked on the effort to develop a centrifuge-based uranium enrichment program about two years ago," the CIA analysis said. North Korea began seeking centrifuge-related materials "in large quantities" last year, and obtained equipment that could be used in uranium feed and withdrawal systems, the analysis said.