Now that the Middle East is cooling down, relatively speaking of course, it’s time for North Korea to start making noise again.
Aug. 17, 2006 ??There is new evidence that North Korea may be preparing for an underground test of a nuclear bomb, U.S. officials told ABC News.
“It is the view of the intelligence community that a test is a real possibility,” said a senior State Department official.
A senior military official told ABC News that a U.S. intelligence agency has recently observed “suspicious vehicle movement” at a suspected North Korean test site.
The activity includes the unloading of large reels of cable outside P’unggye-yok, an underground facility in northeast North Korea. Cables can be used in nuclear testing to connect an underground test site to outside observation equipment. The intelligence was brought to the attention of the White House last week.
Even before this most recent intelligence, there has been growing concern within the U.S. government that North Korea has been moving toward a nuclear test. North Korea is believed to have enough nuclear material to build as many as a dozen nuclear bombs, but it has never tested one. A successful test would remove any doubt that North Korea is a nuclear power.
“What does he have to lose?” asked one senior military official, referring to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.
Pretty much nothing as I see it, and he’s probably jealous that the world has been spending so much attention on Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah for the past month and a half. And, if it happens, our options are pretty limited:
Asked what the United States would do in response to a nuclear test, a senior U.S. official told ABC News, “We would try to hermetically seal the hermit kingdom.”
The official said the United States would immediately push for sanctions to cut North Korea’s ties to the outside world. Another possible option would be a naval blockade of North Korea.
But it is unclear how effective such efforts would be. North Korea is already the most isolated country in the world.
Just great.
[...] Below the Beltway [...]