North Korea unambiguously declares possession of nukes
by Richardson ~ February 28th, 2006. Filed under: DPRK Military, Geopolitics, Six-Party Talks, WMD.No more guessing if the translation of a phrase meant “nuclear weapon” or “nuclear deterrent,” and what those difference might imply, North Korea has claimed that they are indeed a nuclear power:
“We manufactured nuclear weapons with our own technology, funds and raw materials from A to Z. As we are not dependent on the U.S. at all in the economic and financial fields, no U.S. sanctions would work on us,” a spokesman for North Korea’s said. (emphasis added)
At least part of that claim is blatantly false – Pakistan admitted that their top nuclear scientist, A.Q. Kahn, gave North Korea uranium reprocessing technology and equipment throughout the 1990s. That lie calls into question the claim of possessing a nuclear weapon. More on this to follow…
March 1st, 2006 at 3:10 pm
North Korea unambiguously declares possession of nukes
[…] Yesterday the North Korea headline was that they claimed to have created nuclear weapons (and all on their own). Today’s headline is that the U.S. knows its plausible that North Korea has nukes, but cannot say for sure one way or the other: In a marked departure from precedent, U.S. intelligence chief John Negroponte declined to estimate the number of nuclear devices North Korea might have assembled, despite repeated questioning by Democrats at a hearing by the Senate Committee on Armed Services. […]