North Korea now claims to have fuel for six bombs

Remember how I thought they had fuel enough for three back in April? According to the New York Times, now North Korea claims they have fuel for six. The only part missing previously was that there hadn't been Krypton gas detected according to reports in the Washington Post and New York Times. Now the Chosun Ilbo is reporting that Krypton gas is being detected (see article below).

Now, do we think they'll test one first, or just start selling them on the open market? If they test one, it's definately proof that they work. But then it might be harder to smuggle it out, so it might be better to go ahead and sell two or three to a party, let them test by using them. You know what the most aggravating part of this is? That we could have stopped this before it started by dealing with North Korea in a forthright manner, not jerking them around about the pressurized water reactors we were supposed to be giving them which can't be used to produce plutonium. And definately not cutting off their supply of heavy fuel oil. Instead, we chose the hardline path. Trouble is, when you promise to help people and then let them starve, well, they get resentful. We'll be paying for this decision for many years to come.


Evidence of Reprocessing Emerges
by Joo Yong-jung (midway@chosun.com)

WASHINGTON - The Bush Administration was told by intelligence sources that air samples taken in the vicinity of North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear plant indicate the presence of Krypton-85, a specific gas byproduct that suggests reprocessing of the spent fuel rods retrieved there is under way, the U.S. media networks NBC and CNN have reported.

The Bush Administration sent South Korea and Japan information last month suggesting that North Korea was reprocessing some of the 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods; but this was the first time information about Krypton-85 was released. Because the radioactive gas does not exist in natural environments, its detection can be used as evidence of nuclear reprocessing.

The United States usually uses spy planes to collect air samples to detect gasses like Krypton-85, but this time a new method, which government officials refused to disclose, was used, NBC said. If North Korea successfully reprocesses all of the 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods, it could have enough plutonium to produce six to 12 nuclear weapons - some within a matter of months, according to NBC.

Last week, North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations, Park Kil Yon, met with Jack Pritchard, Washington's point man on Pyongyang, in New York and said that the reprocessing of the 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods was completed in June, according to a diplomatic source in Washington.

Park also told Pritchard that the plutonium attained was necessary for Pyongyang to build a nuclear deterrent, and that the construction of the 50MW and 200MW atomic reactors had been resumed.

North Korea said in April that the reprocessing of the 8,000 spent fuel rods had reached its final stage and was going along efficiently.