Increasing tensions with North Korea
By Wolf Blitzer
CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Bush administration says it doesn't want to see a nuclear crisis with North Korea escalate, but the North Koreans apparently see things differently. Their rhetoric is getting more ominous.
One state-run newspaper warns that the United States' refusal to negotiate with North Korea will lead to "uncontrollable consequences." In addition, the North Korean defense minister says that if the U.S. were to provoke a nuclear war, the North Korean army would "mete out determined and merciless punishment to the U.S. imperialist aggressors."
The former NATO commander, retired Gen. Wesley Clark, sums up the North Korean situation this way:
"This is a regime which is collapsing, failing regime internally. It's crying out for attention and assistance. It's unpredictable. So we've got to be very careful in managing the situation."
But the Bush administration is refusing to negotiate with North Korea until it goes back to its earlier pledge to stop developing a bomb. When the North Koreans broke that pledge, the Bush administration retaliated by cutting off earlier-promised fuel supplies.
One source of immediate concern: the U.S. still has nearly 40,000 troops along the Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Korea -- only miles from 1 million heavily armed North Korean troops.
At the heart of the problem is the North Korean nuclear reactor complex capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium. North Korea has alarmed the world by beginning to remove International Atomic Energy Agency monitoring equipment. In Seoul, the South Korean cabinet was told that North Korea is moving nuclear fuel rods with enough plutonium to build two warheads. The North Koreans already have tested long-range ballistic missiles capable of delivering a nuclear warhead. And they're working on longer-range missiles that potentially could hit the U.S. mainland.
Secretary of State Colin Powell has been on the phone with his counterparts in Japan, Russia, China, South Korea, Britain, France and other countries trying to defuse the crisis. But the clock is ticking. Some U.S. analysts fear the North Koreans may be only months away from developing a bomb. Others fear they already may have one or two.
