US draws up plan to bomb North Korea's nuclear plant
Tue Apr 22, 2:56 AM ET


SYDNEY (AFP) - The Pentagon (news - web sites) has produced detailed plans to bomb North Korea (news - web sites)'s nuclear plant at Yongbyon if the Stalinist state goes ahead with reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel rods, an Australian report said.


Citing "well-informed sources close to US thinking", The Australian newspaper said the plan also included a US strike against North Korean heavy artillery in the hills above the border with South Korea (news - web sites).


The artillery directly threatens Seoul as well as US troops stationed south of the Demilitarised Zone.


The Pentagon hardliners said to be behind the plan reportedly believe the precision strikes envisaged in it would not lead to North Korea initiating a general war it would be certain to lose.


This is because Washington would inform Pyongyang that the bombing was not aimed at destroying the regime of Kim Jong-il, but merely at destroying its nuclear weapons capacity.


The Australian report coincides with reports from Washington of an alternative US plan which envisages the United States teaming up with China to press for the removal of North Korea's leadership.


The second plan, contained in a classified memo reportedly circulated by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, argues that Washington's goal should be the collapse of Kim Jong-il's regime.


President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s US Adminstration has repeatedly said it believed the standoff would be resolved through diplomacy.


The reports come as confusion prevails over the ambiguous statements issued by Pyongyang last week about whether it has begun reprocessing 8,000 spent fuel rods or merely completed preparations to do so.


Western analysts, including those in Washington and in South Korea believe North Korea's initial announcement was a mistranslation and doubt there had been any such reprocessing.


Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Tuesday that Canberra also believed Pyongyang's statement claiming it had begun reprocessing the fuel rods had been mistranslated.


Reprocessing the 8,000 fuel rods, which would yield enough plutonium for six nuclear warheads within six months, would be the most provocative step taken by North Korea since the nuclear crisis erupted six months ago.


Downer told ABC radio on Tuesday that the Pentagon undoubtedly had "contingency plans for all sorts of things they could do in North Korea, militarily.


"That's the military's job, to draw up contingency plans, but the American administration strategy, as the President explained to me three weeks ago, is to ensure that there is a successful diplomatic solution here," he added.


"We are just on the threshhold of entering into the first round of talks. I don't know how they will go, but in any case we are starting to make a little bit of progess on the diplomatic front and there isn't about to be a bombing campaign."


North Korea, the United States and China are set to sit down in Beijing this week for the first direct high-level talks since the nuclear standoff erupted in October. The talks will open Wednesday and are scheduled to run until Friday.

actually, North Korea has been in US' "sh!tlist" ever since the Americans lost the Korean War. what's frustrating the US more is that North Korea had the intelligence to build their nuclear military facilities underground, away from the visual range of thei spyplanes and satellites, so US intelligence on North Korea nuclear capability is terrible.

i think the reason why US want to go after NK now is not because they're an immediate and present threat. the Israel/Palestine situation is also and immediate and present threat. The India/Pakistan/Kashmir scenario is also and immediate and present threat. what makes NK stand out is that the US had no idea exactly how immediate and how present a threat NK really is, because their intelligence on them stinks.

North Korea only wants money. A new economic package. They're just doing all this nuclear blackmail thing hoping that the US will give in and hand them money.

I don't think this will escalate into a war.

well, whatever happens to the US and their citizens, it's gonna be their gov't's fault. they've been ****ing every other nation and it's only natural for someone to get pissed.

developing aggressive nuclear capabilities sure is an expensive way of clamoring for money, don't you think?

Well, yes but since they have the tools for it, they can do it.

It has been reported by Colin Powell that North Korea was willing to abandon its nuclear aspirations for financial aid. They only want money. They need money.

i also recall Colin Powell revealing "damning evidence" that Iraq has WMDs. funny, because i recall no WMDs being found in Iraq of the sort that he claimed.

bottom line: when it comes to propaganda, no one, and i mean NO ONE, beats the US of A. so take Powell's statement with a grain of salt. maybe NK wants money, maybe they don't. the crucial question is, do they have the nuclear capability Washington claims they have? or are they more advanced than the US thinks?

at this point, the US cannot afford to underestimate NK. if the NK really want to, they can do an Iraq on South Korea in the name of pre-emptive self-defense, claiming that SK would join the US in aggression against NK. and they can do it with nuclear cannon-propelled shells rather than missiles, since SK is within range of their guns. then there goes US influence in East Asia.

destabilization in the Asia-Pacific region is not going to do wonders to our already suffering economy, by the way.

just some thoughts. all the same, i hope it doesn't escalate to that degree.

North Korea probably has the nuclear capability but we cannot verify that by ourselves. I don't think this will escalate into a war and I still believe there is a diplomatic solution to this. This is not like Saddam Hussein's Iraq who don't listen to diplomacy.

of course the diplomatic channels are still open. this is perhaps the key difference between the Korean situation and the Iraqi situation, wherein the US opened its diplomatic channels to the former and not the latter.

I just hope they can settle this issue peacefully...