North Korea's Secret Weapon: Cold, Hard Reality

April 28, 2003

"It was May of 1994, nine years ago, when the US military planners had first realized that North Korea had the bomb and devised nuclear attack plans ... Any rational person would ask how the North Koreans acquired so many nuclear weapons since 1994. Publicly, the North Koreans are [saying they are ] processing plutonium at it's Yonbyong nuclear reactor and it's stated, and restated, over and over in the mass media to the point of ad nauseum that the North Koreans are capable of making only five or six nuclear weapons in a period of about 6 months. Since Yonbyong doesn't make enough plutonium for 100 nuclear weapons including hydrogen bombs, which use up to three times as much fissionable material as atomic bombs for the separate stages within the H-bombs, the North Koreans had another source for weapons grade fissionable material -- Monazite."

You might ask, what in the world is Monazite? Let us go to an authoritative source to get a definition:

"This phosphate mineral is one of our most popular standards, being in great demand because of its rare earth element content - lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium and neodymium, as well as the radioactive element thorium." http://www.2spi.com/catalog/standards/aweb/spi--min/monazite.shtml

Did you catch that last phrase? "... as well as the radioactive element thorium." Monazite contains the radioactive element, thorium! Now, let us go back to the Independent Media Group article to continue our discussion.

"Monazite is a natural mineral found in many locations on Earth. One of the world's largest monazite deposits is located in North Korea. During World War II, when the Koreas were still one country and occupied by Japan, the Japanese military mined monazite on the Korean Peninsula to extract one of the primary elements that make up monazite -- Thorium."

"Most of the thorium found in monazite is the naturally radioactive Thorium-232 ... By 1945, the Korean Peninsula was split at the 38th Parallel and North Korea was occupied by the Soviet Union. The Soviets took over the Japanese bomb project and moved most of it to a facility north of Moscow along with several North Korean nuclear physicists. The monazite mined in North Korea would be processed in refinement facilities before being shipped to the Soviet Union. The Soviets extracted Thorium-232 from the processed monazite and placed it within nuclear reactors. When Thorium-232 is bombarded by neutrons within a nuclear reactor, it transmittals into fissionable weapons grade material known as -- Uranium-233."

"Uranium-233 works just as well as Plutonium-239 in nuclear weapons because of it's low fission cross section and low critical mass needed to initiate a nuclear explosion. Although Uranium-233 is described as "difficult to work with" because of it's excessive radioactivity, it can be used by someone "wanting to build a nuclear device secretly" ... During the Cold War, the North Koreans continued to mine monazite for the Soviet Union, but once the Soviet Empire collapsed in 1991, the monazite processing facilities, as well as the monazite mines, became the property of the North Koreans. Under the leadership of Kim Il Sung during the Cold War, nuclear reactors were built so North Korea could build it's own nuclear arsenal. When Kim Il Sung died and his son Kim Jong Il became the leader of North Korea, the quest for a nuclear arsenal was speeded up. While Kim Jong Il was publicly agreeing to American demands to shut down the Yonbyong reactor in 1994, the North Koreans were secretly building their nuclear arsenal in underground facilities." [Ibid.]

Now you have "the rest of the story". North Korea has built dirty nuclear bombs, i.e., with a lot of radiation, and have done so very quietly. Notice this article states that the US discovered that North Korea had nuclear warheads back in 1994, and "devised nuclear attack plans", thus setting up the nuclear confrontation scenario called for in the New World Order plans. However, this North Korean unique processing operation allowed the US the fig-leaf public relations gambit we needed to shield the public from early recognition of North Korea's nuclear capabilities. Rather, we insisted before the entire world that North Korea was attempting to follow the standard method of developing atomic warheads, and that we were watching their one standard reactor at Yonbyong. If this one reactor began emitting krypton, we would know they were trying to develop a few warheads and we might pre-emptively strike.

For its part, North Korea always insisted that a pre-emptive bombing of Yonbyong Reactor would be an "act of war", when the reality is that Yonbyong is of no real military value! Thus, you can see how each part of this script is being played out by both sides. Now that we are getting close to the reality of a real nuclear confrontation in the Korean Peninsula that threatens mankind's very survival, it is time to allow people to see the truth, that North Korea has had nuclear weapons for a very long time.

If the American people had understood that North Korea possessed up to 300 nuclear warheads, do you think we would have stood by to allow President Bush to concentrate the cream of the American military crop in Iraq to face a weaker enemy, knowing full well we would not then have the resources to repel an North Korean invasion by conventional means? I think not! A lot of thinking Americans would have stood as one to protest this policy; however, now that our troops are physically on the ground in Iraq, the truth of North Korea's nuclear capability can become public knowledge.

One final note: Apparently, North Korea did barter with Pakistan late in the 1990's, whereby North Korea sent unspecified numbers of missiles to Pakistan, receiving Pakistani nuclear warheads in return. These warheads just added to the total North Korea already possessed, and they are "all locked onto American cities" [The Weekend Australian, Ibid.]

http://www.cuttingedge.org/email.html