[Mb-civic] North Korea's Rising Urgency - Carl Levin and Hilary Rodham Clinton - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

North Korea's Rising Urgency

Not Engaging Is Not an Alternative

By Carl Levin and Hillary Clinton
Tuesday, July 5, 2005; Page A13

It's been a year since the United States and its negotiating partners 
sat down with North Korea to discuss the elimination of North Korea's 
nuclear weapons program. In the meantime Porter Goss, the director of 
central intelligence, has reported to the Senate Armed Services 
Committee (on March 17) that the number of nuclear weapons North Korea 
possesses has increased and that there is now "a range" of estimates 
above the one or two weapons that may have been produced in the early 
1990s. His testimony implies that the intelligence community believes 
North Korea reprocessed the 8,000 fuel rods that had been kept under 
strict surveillance from 1994 to 2003 in accordance with the Agreed 
Framework between North Korea and the United States. If so, this could 
mean that North Korea has many times the number of nuclear weapons it 
did before the Bush administration took office.

Thus, while the administration wrangled internally about whether to 
negotiate seriously with North Korea, Pyongyang was using the time to 
break out as a nuclear power. Indeed, in February the North Koreans 
declared that they have a "nuclear weapons arsenal."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/04/AR2005070400862.html?nav=hcmodule
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