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Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
 
quote:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. intelligence community is monitoring what appears to be preparations by North Korea to conduct a nuclear test, a Defense Department official told CNN Friday. But the official strongly emphasized that it is unclear whether the activity is real or deceptive.

The official said there are indications of North Korea "digging holes and then filling them up with dirt" and that such activity is suggestive of underground test preparations.

But he added, "The North Koreans are letting the U.S. see what they want us to see."

The official could not say whether there were any indications of a nuclear device or weapon being placed in any of those holes. The U.S. military and intelligence community have long tracked North Korean deception programs and is aware that North Korea may undertake some activities to deceive U.S. spy satellites.

The official said some analysis that dictates against nuclear test preparation activity is that North Korea understands any test would end negotiations with the United States -- and most likely with China.

The New York Times reported Friday that recent satellite photographs of North Korea appear to show rapid, extensive preparations for a nuclear weapons test. The report came just days after North Korea -- a communist nation led by reclusive leader Kim Jong Il -- tested a short-range missile.

In an interview with CNN Friday, Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the reports, if true, send a "very, very bad signal to our effort to roll back the North Korean program."

"I would hope that every country right now, every leader, is on the phone with Kim Jong Il, trying to convince him to restrain from going ahead with this reported nuclear testing," he said.

ElBaradei said the international community must make clear that it "will have absolutely no tolerance for a nuclear weapon in North Korea."
North Korean capability vs. activity

In Washington a U.S. official said that while satellite imagery shows increased activity at one of North Korea's nuclear sites, activity there has "come and gone with varying degrees of intensity" over the months. What remains unclear is whether increased activity at the site is related to North Korea's intentions to test a nuclear weapon.

The official added that a "working assumption" exists that North Korea can in fact test a bomb without much warning at all. If they do test, said the official, it is a "question of politics and not technology."

Meanwhile, a State Department official said that while there may be some in the intelligence community who believe North Korea may be preparing for a nuclear test, the "assessment of the broader" intelligence community is that a test is not imminent -- and that preparations for such a test may not be in the works.

The official went on to say that the U.S. intelligence community "doesn't want to convey the idea that nothing is going on" in North Korea, but rather that there is some type of activity taking place. For what, they are not sure.

David Albright, a former U.N. nuclear weapons inspector, said a scenario in which North Korea would test a nuclear bomb is extremely troubling, and countries need to brace themselves for that possibility.

He said the situation must be "managed very carefully, so we don't inadvertently end up in a war."

"I think one of the important things that the United States and people in northeast Asia should be doing right now is preparing just in case North Korea does test," he told CNN. "We don't want this to be a big surprise that leads countries to take very drastic actions -- particularly with North Korea, where you never can really predict how they're going to respond. I mean, we know [if] you push them, they push back harder."

Albright said he believes North Korea could probably put a "crude nuclear weapon" on a short-range missile that could hit Japan but not a long-range missile that could reach the United States.

He added, "There's a view that they're increasing their capabilities to make nuclear weapons, but we remain very uncertain about what they've actually accomplished."

Earlier this week a South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman said South Korea and the United States had noticed movements in tunnels in the North Korean county of Kilju. "We have continuously tried to verify the tunnel, but we are not sure of what the purpose of this tunnel is." He did not elaborate.

The statements were in reaction to a report in the Chosun Ilbo newspaper, which quoted South Korean intelligence sources as saying they recently got a briefing from U.S. counterparts about activities in the area of Kilju that could be preparations for a nuclear test.

The United States has been working recently to jump-start six-party talks, involving Japan, South Korea, Russia, China and North Korea, to get Pyongyang to end its program.

Last week, President Bush said the six-party talks are the best way to solve the dispute with Kim.

"There is concern about his capacity to deliver a nuclear weapon. We don't know if he can or not, but I think it's best, when you're dealing with a tyrant like Kim Jong Il, to assume he can," Bush said. "That's why I've decided that the best way to deal with this diplomatically is to bring more leverage to the situation by including other countries."

Now what I have to ask is what right does the US have to deny North Korea from gaining a nuclear bomb? I would say you'ld have the moral high ground if you agreed to get rid of YOUR OWN nukes as well as theres and as long as everyone's else nukes.
 
Posted by digging_holes (Member # 6237) on :
 
Hey, I'm mentioned in the article!

I didn't like the part about being filled up with dirt, though. Those nasty North Koreans, who do they think they are...
 
Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
 
lol, you dig the holes we fill em, and there's nothing you can do about it. nya nah na!
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
Anyone who writes 'theres' (which isn't even a word, it needs an apostrophe) for 'theirs' has no room to talk about the moral high ground. Gulag for you!
 
Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
 
okay umm... I meant there's as in "there is" not "theirs"
 
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
We have proven we aren't going to break them out and use them on other nations for anything short of world war...I doubt teh North Koreans have done so.

Also, we are acting not only in our own best interests but in the best interests of teh world in limiting the spread of these weapons, and are acting with the cooperation of the international community in this.

Works for me, anyway...and I am not what you would call a Bush supporter.

Kwea
 
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
 
It'd work better if ol' Dubya hadn't broken the agreement in which NorthKorea was to keep their nuclear plant sealed&inoperable in exchange for US food&energy aid cuz he wanted the "NorthKorea is gonna nuke us!!!" excuse to waste money on playing StarWars.

Or if Dubya hadn't threatened Iran and NorthKorea by placing them alongside Iraq in the "axis of evil", then invading Iraq.

[ May 08, 2005, 04:13 AM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
 
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
 
Oh, yeah. That diplomacy sure is working. Real well. Yep. Working like a charm.
 
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
 
Well, if you're talking of Dubya's "diplomacy", obviously not. Especially not when Dubya is kissyfacing with Pakistan after they broke their own international agreements by detonating their first nuke.
Heck, Dubya's even agreed to sell Pakistan US military jets to deliver those bombs.

If you're talking about preDubya, diplomacy worked rather well. Couldn't extract plutonium or fissile uranium outta fuel rods when the rods remained sealed in a shut-down powerplant.

[ May 08, 2005, 05:34 AM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
 
Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
 
C'mon both Russia + break away republics and USA have tens of thousands of nukes! Frankly I'ld feel safer if EVERY nation with nuclear weapons would agree to disarm all of them but say one or two nuclear bomb to act as a deterent. Hell having just ZERO would be nice. Or hell if someone developed a missile shield or something would also be good.
 
Posted by Homonculus (Member # 7486) on :
 
If we were to place an array of satelites around the earth that with some new technology, shot down missiles as soon as they were launched, wouldn't that be a nice day?
 
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
 
quote:
We have proven we aren't going to break them out and use them on other nations for anything short of world war
Kwea
Not true. For decades the US has reserved the option to retaliate against WMDs with nukes, in tactical situations. Thst could cause a world war, but we could use nukes before such a war started.

Of course, we would be far less likely to do so than N. Korea, and would only do so if attacked. God only knows what Kim Jong plans...he's a real wild card.

Hopefully this hole digging is just posturing before serious negotiations, and not leading up to a real nuke test.
 
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
 
As for what right...I don't believe we really need an unassailable and moral imperative to actively seek denying North Korea nuclear arms.

North Korea has been a source of tension in the area for a long time and with a mind that US forces may be called upon to engage in any armed conflict that could arise, I see no problem with stacking the deck in the US' favor and seeking to deny a future and likely hostile force access to very powerful weapons.

Very powerful weapons that have global ramifications when used.

I don't like the idea of North Korea having nukes because the current leadership has already demonstrated both a worrying instability and willingness to saber-rattle for food and humanitarian aid.

In wouldn't take much of a leap for someone to think, "well, if they offered us food not to develop a nuke program, just imagine what they'd offer us if we demonstrated our ability to detonate a nuke!"

Although, to be fair, North Korea was quite eager to prove the mushroom cloud earlier wasn't, in fact, a nuclear explosion. Which means at least someone has a realistic grasp of the situation.

-Trevor
 
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
 
Remember that it is Dubya who pulled out of negotiations with NorthKorea, and Dubya who refuses to return.
NorthKorea ain't got half the nutcase leader as the US
 
Posted by Alistair (Member # 7858) on :
 
Out of curiosity aspectre, what 'pre-dubya' diplomacy are you looking at? Lets take a quick look at North Korea's nuclear history:

In 1993 the left the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, not because they wanted to build nukes, but because they already were building them in direct violation of the treaty and people were starting to get suspicious.

In 1994 they make another agreement with the US wherein North Korea promises to stop its nuclear weapons program and dismantle it.

In 1998 North Korea fires a multistage rocket over Japan to prove that it could attack them. An odd thing to do if you have no nuclear program to back up your threats with. Later that year the US demands to conduct inspections of what they suspect are underground nuclear facilities under construction, you know the kind of thing they promised that they would stop doing four years before.

In 1999 we ease the sanctions against them, spend $5 billion to build them new reactors.

Only 6 months later in 2000 North Korea was already threatening to restart its nuclear program because of delays in the reactor construction. Of course considering all of the evidence I don't think its going to far to assume that they never stopped it in the first place.

My question is simply what part of this did you see as "working rather well"?
 
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
 
Despite some arguments to the contrary, I would like to believe that Mr. Bush does not hold unilateral and unconditional power over the US government and military.

If nothing else Mr. Bush does, I believe, appreciate the fact he has quite a bit to lose if he initiates a WMD strike without substantial justification.

-Trevor
 
Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
 
you mean a bit "too loose" right? Sorry to nitpick. O's must be expensive these days neh? But ya, you have a nuke thus you have the diplomatic ability to blackmail (to use an extreme term) a nation without said nukes to do whatever the hell you want unless they're so economically tied to you and vice versa that it would be impossible to make threats. I would feel better if there was an intenrationally run missile shield able to shoot down any nuclear attack no matter who shot the nuke and who received I'ld be happy. a weapons that is useless is the same as no weapon.
 
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
 
No...I meant "to lose" as in, things of value that might be taken away if he screwed up.

However, if you read my sentence as, "Mr. Bush is too loose with the requirements to initiate a nuclear launch", your word choice would be correct.

You'd be wrong about my sentence, but your word choice would be appropriate.

-Trevor
 
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
To be even a little bit fair-minded and complete about the issue...

It's Dubya who refuses to return to bilateral talks with N. Korea.

It is N. Korea who refuses to return to multilateral talks with the USA.

Isn't 'multilateral' what so many people want Dubya to be?
 
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
Bilateral and multilateral talks are not mutually exclusive.

All the multilateral coalition and NK asked the US to enter bilateral talks in addition to the multilateral talks; the US refused, so NK backed out of general talks.
 
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
Oh, and the US also refused to actually bring anything to talk about to the table unless NK ceased everything before talking, which is hardly a conducive position, especially given NK is ruled via a cult of personality, meaning the government can't do that and maintain its hold.

I always think its very effective to tell a government "we won't talk to you unless you stop the very actions that are the reasons talks are needed in a way that would reduce or eliminate your ability to govern".
 
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
 
quote:
the US refused, so NK backed out of general talks.
I suspect that's not the only reason NK left the multilateral talks, though it is a convenient excuse for NK.
 
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
Oh, its hardly the only reason, but acting as if the US not entering bilateral talks wasn't a barrier to progress is incorrect.
 
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
 
True. I don't understand why we refuse bilateral talks, or put up such high barriers to beginning such negotiations. It doesn't make sense to me, and doesn't advance non-proliferation.
 
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
Here's a hint: "Axis of Evil"

It is domestically politically expedient to screw over our chances of a relatively quick, peaceful resolution to the NK situation.
 
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
That was what I was getting at, actually...even though we reserve the option to use them...and lets be honest, so does every power that has tehm, or why build them at all....we are FAR less likely to use them...ew have had plenty of chances to do so, and passed on them all, and rightly so.


I don't like W, not at all, but I don't think HE is the one to blame, at least not just him. It is Iraq all over again...broken agreements, broken treaties, broken promises....adn still we send them money and help.


Disgusting.


Kwea
 
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
 
That seems fairly machiavellian, fugu...but sadly, all too plausible.
 
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
 
I think Fugu is giving the current administration too much credit, but that's just me.

-Trevor
 
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
Isn't it funny? I could pursue a line of reasoning like this: why is it N. Korea is the party that gets to have its demands met, to set conditions under which it will honor its past agreements?

And people would say, "Because they're N. Korea."

And that's enough, really. N. Korea has got it made. They've made such a career out of being the lunatic fringe, the information vaccuum, that people just settle for it, and criticize the W for not going along with the farce!

Insisting that N. Korea stop its current violations of past agreements before attempting to renegotiate is apparently unreasonable because they can't do that because they've made obedience to whim necessary to their power-base!

What a bunch of hogwash.

Entering into bilateral talks with N. Korea puts us on even footing, which we are most definitely not. N. Korea obtaining nukes matters much more to its immediate neighbors than it does to us, so why should we? This insistence on us going along with every little detail N. Korea insists upon before even negotiating is absurd! That's not how you bloody negotiate! You don't negotiate by giving in to your opposition on every little thing before you've even started!

quote:
...quick, peaceful resolution to the NK situation.
I would argue that such things are a political expedient in and of themselves, Fugu. Diplomatic agreements with N. Korea aren't honored by them unless there is naked force involved. Right at their borders.
 
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
NK wasn't asking for demands to be met to come to the table, they were asking to not meet our long list of demands before we'd come directly to the table. You've got it reversed.

We've long known we're quite as much, and with recent information that comes out, more in violation of the agreements you bring up. Why is it NK has to stop its violations before we come to the table but we don't have to stop our violations before they come to the table?

We go into bilateral talks with nations that have less power than us all the time; all it means is we acknowledge they may independently negotiate.

And no, NK had been coming to the multilateral table for quite a while despite none of their desires being met, not avoiding the table until their desires were met.

You keep saying these things about the situation that just aren't true, and saying they should be the ones to bend to our will because they're the bad guys. Perhaps they are the bad guys, but in the diplomatic field we're the ones who've been getting away with everything and not putting the least foot forward.

In fact, the recent discovery that there was no actual evidence (despite the Bush administration assuring us it was true) NK was pursuing a nuclear program before we stopped negotiations and stopped moving towards constructing the LWRs we promised by treaty means we were in violation of the treaty before they were, which means all they did is acknowledge the treaty no longer stood, and resume the operations that treaty had prohibited.
 
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
*bump*
 
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
North Korea is a bit different from other nations, in my opinion-their negotiating stance is founded solely on their belligerence and wackiness, and people's fear of what they might do with nukes if they got them.

None of their desires were being met? How about the plants we were building for them? Sure, construction was seriously delayed-after they decided to test some missiles awfully close to Japan. How did they think we'd react to that little exercise in missle diplomacy?

What 'recent evidence' have you heard that they weren't pursuing a nuke program, aside from, "We said, they said?"

http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/agreedframework.asp

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16214-2005Feb11.html

*shrug* I don't know, Fugu. It appears that as usual, we disagree on some very basic facts of the situation.

My basic opinion is that both sides have been sticking it to each other as best we can ever since the Korean War ended, and that treaties between us have been constantly violated by both sides behind the scenes. I don't have a problem with that, though, since I trust the North Koreans as far as I can throw their entire geography-and I don't blame them, really, for feeling the same way.

But as for the facts that are known and reported, from what I can tell they aren't nearly as straightforward as you claim.
 
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20050101faessay84109/selig-s-harrison/did-north-korea-cheat.html

The US used this "evidence" to break off our talks and construction of LWRs (which had been lagging anyways, but still sort of progressing), and refused to continue any and all negotiation.

Note that while the first page of the article sets it out as a hypothetical, the rest of the article is spent pointing out in detail how all the "evidence" was quite flimsy.
 
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
Also, I was talking about none of their desires being met by the current talks. You asked why the US should come to the (bilateral) table without NK making any concessions; NK came to the multilateral table (which the US doesn't really sit on, the talks are only directly between NK and the other states) without the US making any concessions. That's the point of talks, so one can work out which concessions each side will make to the other.

Demanding concessions before one will talk, particularly demanding every single concession you would want from talks in the first place, isn't exactly kosher.
 
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
 
Well the nuclear non-proliferation treaty worked both ways. The countries without nukes agreed not to try and obtain them, and the countries with nukes agreed to take all possible steps to phase them out over time.

Considering its 37 years later and the United States still has pretty much the exact same nuclear capacity it did when it signed the treaty, I would say that WE are in violation of the treaty. I don't think we have the moral high ground to tell any country it can't have them.
 
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
NK is not a signatory to the NPT. They (were) bound by a different treaty, the Agreed Framework.
 
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
quote:
Although it is now widely recognized that the Bush administration misrepresented and distorted the intelligence data it used to justify the invasion of Iraq...
It isn't 'widely recognized', there is controversy about it to this day. Ask a Democrat, and it's 'widely recognized'. Ask a Republican, and it isn't. Almost without fail yes or no to that question, depending on who you ask. Personally I believe that while the Bush Administration permitted and caused too much pressure to float down into the intelligence community to get the 'correct information', I also don't believe they thought Iraq didn't have WMD.

quote:
But what if those assessments were exaggerated and blurred the important distinction between weapons-grade uranium enrichment (which would clearly violate the 1994 Agreed Framework) and lower levels of enrichment (which were technically forbidden by the 1994 accord but are permitted by the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty [NPT] and do not produce uranium suitable for nuclear weapons)?
This is a distinction between really bad and oh, crap! As you said yourself, Fugu, NK isn't a signatory of the NPT-and in fact, there is talk that current NPT language is too lenient, and that too much so-called 'civilian' grade nuclear tech can in fact be easily weaponized. At least, that's what I heard discussed on NPR the other day. I'm definitely not an expert on nuclear technology, weapons or civilian.

quote:
There is a real danger that military and other pressures on North Korea, designed to bolster a failing diplomatic process, could escalate into a full-scale war that none of North Korea's neighbors would support.
I think this danger is exaggerated. I do not believe the USA is in any real danger of entering into a war with North Korea over this or any other issue. And no, I don't believe this just because the Bush Administration says we aren't invading.

quote:
But Kang has subsequently denied this; what he actually told Kelly, according to Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun, was deliberately ambiguous: that North Korea is "entitled" to have such a program or "an even more powerful one" to deter a pre-emptive U.S. attack.
That's reassuring. And for the record, the USA doesn't pursue an ncnd policy like NK is apparently doing. Everyone knows we've got nukes, we just don't go into exact numbers, ranges, and destructive capacities.

quote:
Kelly's confrontation with Kang seems to have been inspired by the growing alarm felt in Washington in the preceding five months over the ever more conciliatory approach that Seoul and Tokyo had been taking toward Pyongyang; by raising the uranium issue, the Bush administration hoped to scare Japan and South Korea into reversing their policies.
Conjecture.

quote:
Faced with the prospect that the North Korea policies of South Korea and Japan had slipped out of its control, the Bush administration "saw a real possibility that its options on the [Korean] peninsula would increasingly be driven by the policy agendas of others," wrote Jonathan Pollack, chairman of the Strategic Research Department at the U.S. Naval War College in the summer of 2003. Plans for Kelly's visit to Pyongyang were accelerated, and his showdown with North Korean leaders came less than three weeks after Koizumi's meeting with Kim Jong Il.
Further conjecture. Why should I trust NK more than I trust the Bush Administration? Some people reading this will honestly wonder who they should trust more. I honestly think their perspective is so skewed and biased that there isn't any middle-ground to be reached on the subject-but that's OK, since I expect they'd think the same about me.

I would also be interested in learned exactly which member of the Bush Administration told Pollack these things. Just because he works for the US gov't (it looks like he does, anyway, since he works for the USN War College), doesn't mean he speaks for it.

quote:
Pollack suggests that Kelly's charges were not justified by U.S. intelligence. Pointing to a CIA report submitted to Congress in November 2002, Pollack wrote that "the imprecision in the CIA analysis underscored the difficulties of estimating the extant capabilities and ultimate purposes of the North's enrichment program" and left it unclear "how complete and compelling the intelligence data may have been." According to Pollack, the CIA report indicated that North Korea had no operational enrichment facility to declare. ... The intelligence community believed that North Korea still [would have] confronted daunting obstacles had it decided to build an enriched uranium weapon, or even to acquire the production capabilities that might ultimately permit such an option. Most officials recognized that the path to a meaningful enrichment capability remained a distant and very uncertain possibility.
Interesting how in one sentence, Pollack acknowledges-barely-the extreme difficulties involved in getting any hard intelligence on NK activities, but then talks about what the intelligence community believed would happen. The int. community recognizes the difficulties involved, and the best they can say is that maybe NK would face 'daunting difficulties'.

quote:
In most of these cases, however, it is not clear whether the purchases were ever made and, if so, how much North Korea bought. For example, in April 2003, French, German, and Egyptian authorities blocked a 22-ton shipment of high-strength aluminum tubes to North Korea, the first installment of an order for 200 tons. But no evidence has been presented to establish that any of the order was delivered. Similarly, a U.S. Department of Energy intelligence study reported a North Korean "attempt" to buy two electrical-frequency converters from a Japanese firm in 1999. But the report concluded that "with only two converters, [North Korea] was probably only establishing a pilot-scale uranium enrichment capability."
Anyway, it's a long article, and somewhat informative, but this post is already long enough. Pollack is to me unpersuasive, Fugu. From what I can tell, NK is trying constantly to purchase equipment it would need to make weapons banned both by the old AF and the NPT. This, along with their missile tests, their ncnd policy, and the information vaccuum adds up differently for me than it does you.
 
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
quote:
Demanding concessions before one will talk, particularly demanding every single concession you would want from talks in the first place, isn't exactly kosher.
I think that stopping NK from efforts it's taking right now to obtain nukes (if it does not have them already) is quite kosher. But, wait, NK still insists that it gets to operate under the ncnd policy.

quote:
NK is not a signatory to the NPT. They (were) bound by a different treaty, the Agreed Framework.
Apparently they didn't feel bound by it. But that takes us back into they said, we said, and these people are unconvinced.

quote:
Considering its 37 years later and the United States still has pretty much the exact same nuclear capacity it did when it signed the treaty, I would say that WE are in violation of the treaty. I don't think we have the moral high ground to tell any country it can't have them.
Has Russia's capacity diminished?
 
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
I don't have time to respond to much, but I can respond to some:

It is quite widely recognized the intelligence for Iraq was greatly distorted, the only question is where it got distorted. And in one very real sense it was the Bush administration, by the Bush administration's own admission; the intelligence community is part of the executive branch, and they botched it royally. Not to mention there is definitive proof that people such as Dick Cheney were saying there was no doubt Iraq was working hard towards developing nuclear weapons when he had been recently informed the Energy Department strongly dissented on that view after reviewing the CIA's evidence.
 
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
 
quote:
Has Russia's capacity diminished?
So we're just never going to fulfill our requirement because Russia isn't fulfilling it either? The treaty is meaningless then. Why should non-nuclear powers uphold their end of the bargain if we won't hold up ours? Can we (with a straight face) object if they break away from it?
 
Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
 
uuuuuhhhh... Russia's has dimenished. Each republic that broke away brought with it a certain amount of nukes with them. Then theres the fact that out of security reasons some have been handed over to the us to dispose of them.
 
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
 
And the problem isn't Russia, it's the US. The currentAdministration refuses to abide by the STrategicArmsReductionTreaty which calls for breaking up and destroying warheads.
Dubya wants to pretend that disassembly and storage of parts, including the nuclear cores, for easy&rapid reassembly is the same as the START provisions for the destruction of parts and dilution&dispersal of fissile nuclear material.

[ May 12, 2005, 05:35 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
 
Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
 
I say we gather an elite strike team of lawyers and sue him.
 
Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
 
*bump*
 


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