North Korea NOT Iraq...new kid on the block...

[Frank]

Problem is, the odds are slowly stacking up... as they always do.

Yours,
Frank

[PeacefulWarrior]

Malveaux: Bush sees difference between Iraq, North Korea

Wednesday, January 1, 2003 Posted: 1:10 PM EST (1810 GMT)
CNN's Suzanne Malveaux     
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CRAWFORD, Texas (CNN) -- President Bush is warning against comparing North Korea's nuclear weapons program to the threat from Iraq. He said he's confident that the stalemate with Pyongyang is not going to lead to military action. CNN White House Correspondent Suzanne Malveaux on Wednesday discussed the president's recent comments about this.

MALVEAUX: President Bush's New Year's resolution, he said yesterday, was to resolve these conflicts peacefully. It was at a coffee shop in Crawford, where he answered the one question that has been on so many people's minds -- why the administration is considering military action with Iraq, which says it has no weapons of mass destruction, but not with North Korea, which does have nuclear weapons and has been making some moves to possibly produce more.

President Bush said that when it comes to North Korea, it's not a military showdown, but a diplomatic one. He still believes that a peaceful resolution through diplomacy and economic pressure [can be done].

And despite calls from Russia and South Korea for dialogue, not isolation, President Bush is confident that he can win the support of North Korea's neighbors.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT BUSH: There is strong consensus, not only amongst the nations in the neighborhood and our friends, but also at the international organizations, such as the IAEA, that North Korea ought to comply with international regulations. I believe this can be done peacefully through diplomacy, and we will continue to work that way. All options, of course, are always on the table for any president, but by working with these countries, we can resolve this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Iraq: President Bush [has expressed] very little confidence that Saddam Hussein will comply. He says that Saddam Hussein was close to producing a nuclear weapon in the '90s. He still believes that he is making those efforts today in defiance of the will of the international community for more than a decade.



fides quaerens intellectum

[PeacefulWarrior]

Whoa...people think Iraq is a problem, I think this whole N. Korea thing has the potential to start some MAJOR global conflict(s)... here is some of the latest news on the subject:
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Experts Assess N. Korean Nuclear Threat

By GEORGE GEDDA
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Winston Churchill once suggested that the United States and the Soviet Union were engaging in overkill with their propensity for building large numbers of nuclear weapons.

Beyond a certain point, he said, these weapons would serve no purpose other than to "bounce the rubble."

North Korea now has one or two weapons and Secretary of State Colin Powell says that number may soar to six in a matter of months. Pyongyang, according to analysts, is a long way from the nuclear redundancy that Churchill found in superpower weapons development programs decades ago. Yet, at North Korea's levels, there is broad agreement inside and outside of government that each new weapon is significant.

"North Korea's options increase exponentially with each additional nuclear device that it has in its arsenal," says Nicholas Eberstadt, a Korea expert at the American Enterprise Institute.

He acknowledges that the largest leap North Korea took occurred when it went from "zero to one" and made itself much more of a force to be reckoned with.
But with six nuclear bombs and the missiles to deliver them, a whole range of targets in South Korea and Japan, not to mention U.S. military bases in Northeast Asia, "can be credibly threatened," Eberstadt says.

Robert Einhorn, a former State Department Korea expert who is now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, agrees with Eberstadt's thesis.

But he cites an additional concern. "With one or two weapons, you're not going to sell any to any country or group," he says. "But if you have six or seven, and you're desperate enough ... you might be tempted to export the technology" - with incalculable consequences for international power balances, he says.

Powell is concerned about Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions but says it is not yet time to hit the panic button. He noted in interviews on Sunday that North Korea has had nuclear weapons for some time without serious consequences. He is hopeful that international pressure can induce the North to dismantle its program.

"We have months to watch this unfold to see what happens," he says.

Powell says he does not want to reward the North's "bad behavior" by opening negotiations.

But Alan Romberg, an Asia expert formerly at the State Department and now at the Henry L. Stimson Center, says the administration may have no choice but to cut a deal with the North.

He says the United States should be willing to offer the North formal security assurances under circumstances in which the Pyongyang would agree to dismantle its nuclear programs.

Romberg acknowledges that, given the North's propensity for violating promises to become a non-nuclear state, comprehensive verification of any such arrangement would be critical.

Eberstadt believes the outcome of the standoff with North Korea could well be influenced by whether the United States goes to war with Iraq and, if so, whether Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is removed from power.

If that goal is achieved, that would mean the elimination of one-third of President Bush's "axis of evil." North Korean Chairman Kim Jong Il knows he also is on the "axis" list and there would "certainly be the implicit threat" that if Saddam goes Kim could be removed next, Eberstadt says.

How Kim would react is not clear. If Saddam survives, the Korea crisis would take on a different - but difficult to predict - coloration.

Sandy Berger and Robert Gallucci, who were top foreign policy aides to former President Clinton, say the Bush administration should give equal priority to both Iraq and North Korea.

The administration cannot afford delay on North Korea because Pyongyang, left unchecked, can make the Asia Pacific region a far more dangerous place within months, Berger and Gallucci wrote in an opinion piece in Tuesday's Washington Post.

Deferring action on Iraq also would be a mistake, they wrote, because it would send a "chilling message" if the United States were to be "knocked off course in one arena by trouble-making in another."

Both developing crises should be dealt with at once, Berger and Gallucci say. "There are no safe back burners."

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S. Korea Rebuffs North in Nuclear Crisis

By PAUL SHIN
Associated Press Writer

Torchia reports that the U-S-South Korean alliance will probably weather this storm. (Audio)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- South Korea rejected a proposal from the communist North to work together against the United States and told Pyongyang on Thursday to stop saber-rattling.

South Korea Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun also said the North's leadership "should not attempt to test the limit of the patience of the international community."

Jeong, whose ministry handles inter-Korean affairs, said his government will use upcoming inter-Korean Cabinet-level talks to urge North Korea to stop efforts to restart its nuclear facilities.

The meetings, which are the highest channels of dialogue between the two sides, will provide the first opportunity for South Korea to directly raise the nuclear issue with the North.

"The nuclear issue is a matter that affects the destiny of our people," Jeong said. "Therefore, we should actively search for a solution that can make all parties - South and North Korea and related countries - the winner."

Also Thursday, South Korea claimed critical Chinese support in its drive to speed diplomacy to end the crisis.

South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Tae-sik and Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi agreed in Beijing that their countries would try "to resolve North Korea's nuclear issue peacefully through dialogue," a senior South Korean Foreign Ministry official said.

"The two sides will work to prevent the situation from further aggravating," said Shin Jung-seung, director of the ministry's Asia-Pacific affairs section.

At the United Nations, diplomats said Beijing wanted to deal privately with the situation through diplomatic channels rather than bringing it to the Security Council where Chinese diplomats could wind up - because of the long-standing alliance with the North - publicly defending Pyongyang.

Seoul has also acknowledged the desire of South Koreans for their government to assume a larger role in determining the outcome of the dangerous standoff and vowed to lead the campaign to damp down the confrontation with the isolated, Stalinist North.

"We must mobilize all our diplomatic resources to find a peaceful solution to the problem that is directly connected to our nation's stability and prosperity," said South Korean Foreign Minister Choi Sung-hong.

President Bush, however, sharply rebuked North Korean leader Kim Jong Il on Thursday, saying he has "no heart for somebody who starves his folks," though he remains confident in a peaceful solution to the nuclear standoff.

In early December, North Korea alarmed the world by deciding to reactivate its plutonium-based nuclear program. It since has removed monitoring seals and cameras from its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon, expelled U.N. inspectors who visually monitored those facilities and signaled it may quit the global nuclear arms control treaty.

While Washington has vowed to use diplomacy, the North suspects Washington eventually will use military force. And North Korea's state media said the country would not bend to U.S. pressure.

"If the U.S. tries to settle the issue with (North Korea) by force, (North Korea) has no idea of avoiding it," said the North's government newspaper, Minju Joson, in a report carried on the North's foreign news outlet, Korean Central News Agency.

It said the North's army was strong and ready to fight.

The North, sensing opportunity in widespread anti-American sentiment in South Korea, also urged the South on Wednesday to back its confrontation with the United States.

This emphasis on "cooperation" with South Korea comes at a time when Seoul is criticizing a possible U.S. plan to use economic sanctions to force North Korea to abandon its suspected nuclear weapons program.

North Korea's overtures also are driven by economic needs, experts said.

South Korea, under President Kim Dae-jung's "sunshine" policy of engaging the North, has launched a series of unfinished inter-Korean projects, including a cross-border rail link and tourist and industrial parks, that would bring the impoverished North badly needed investment.

North Korea, which can hardly feed its 22 million people without outside relief, risks losing key sources of aid with its actions in recent weeks.
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U.S. to host talks on N. Korea

Thursday, January 2, 2003 Posted: 2:26 PM EST (1926 GMT)
Bush
Bush criticized North Korea's Kim Jong II as a leader who "starves his folks."
  Story Tools

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States, Japan and South Korea will have a "trilateral" coordination group meeting next week to discuss the nuclear situation in North Korea, a State Department spokesman said Thursday.

The meeting will be held in Washington. James Kelley, assistant secretary of state for East Asian affairs, will lead the U.S. delegation, and will go to the region shortly thereafter, said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.

U.S. officials have spoken in recent weeks of a peaceful resolution to the standoff with North Korea over its recent moves toward a nuclear build-up.

Earlier in the day, after talks in Beijing, South Korean officials announced that South Korea and China will try to settle the North Korean nuclear crisis through negotiations.

"South Korea and China reaffirmed the principle of resolving North Korea's nuclear problem peacefully through dialogue," said Shin Chung-Seung, director general of the Asia-Pacific office of the South Korean foreign ministry.

He offered no details, however, on how the two nations planned to go about that effort.

A senior U.S. administration official called those talks "encouraging," and said "nobody is ruling out talks" with North Korea.

"We want them to reverse their course," the official said. "We will not negotiate with North Korea, we will not give them indu

cements. But we are not ruling out talks."

In statements at his ranch in Texas, President Bush criticized North Korea's Kim Jong II as a leader who "starves his folks." But the president reiterated his belief that the standoff with the isolated nation over its development of nuclear weapons could be resolved diplomatically.

"It was right here at this spot where Jiang Zemin, the leader of China, and myself got together and put out a joint declaration that we expect for the Korean peninsula to be nuclear-weapons-free," Bush said. "I believe the situation with North Korea will be resolved peacefully. As I said, it's a diplomatic issue, not a military issue, and we're working all fronts."

South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Tae-sik met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing.

Diplomats said Lee was believed to have urged China, an ally that has given impoverished North Korea substantial economic aid, to play a more active role in ending the standoff.

South Korea also plans to send Assistant Foreign Minister Kim Han-Kyong to Moscow later this week for talks with Russian officials as part of its diplomatic efforts to resolve the issue of North Korea's nuclear weapons program, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Kim Eui-Take.

North Korea announced last week it would reactivate the Yongbyon plant -- which is capable of producing enough weapons-grade plutonium to make two or three nuclear bombs per year -- and then told International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to leave the country.

The North Korean news agency KCNA carried a statement over the weekend hinting North Korea was considering pulling out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which it threatened to do in 1993.

-- CNN Producer Elise Labott and White House Correspondent Suzanne Malveaux contributed to this report.
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