- Beginning August 27, senior Bush administration officials
will join Japan, Russia, China, and South Korea in talks with North Korea.
In exchange for a verifiable end to its nuclear weapons program, Pyongyang
wants the protection afforded by a non-aggression pact. Washington says
it will put assurances in writing, but stops short of promising a Senate-ratified
agreement.
-
- Pyongyang - already cast as a member of the "Axis
of evil" - is wary of the Iraq treatment - pre-empting diplomacy for
deployment in a dance that could clearly end on the nuclear brink.
-
- This month, on the 58th anniversary of the Hiroshima
bombing, cabinet members, scientists, Pentagon officials and weapons contractors
met to discuss plans to develop the next generation of nuclear weapons
- a meeting from which members of Congress were barred. These "mini
nukes" have a special application to "rogue" states and
organizations as proposed by the White House's 2001 Nuclear Posture Review.
Will the DPRK find itself on the short list of possible targets?
-
- * North Koreans are still falsely taught that the Korean
War began with a U.S. invasion across the 38th parallel - making the nation
wary of "another U.S. attack"
-
- * North Korea admits developing material capable of
making one or two nuclear warheads
-
- * The U.S. has 10,729 nuclear warheads and spends $27
billion/year preparing to fight a nuclear war
-
- * Destroying a deeply dug target would require a 100
kiloton nuclear blast - a force 10 times the Hiroshima bomb which has so
far killed 231,920 people
-
- Are states pursuing nukes to deter U.S. pre-emptive strikes?
Does it run counter to U.S. interests to pursue new nuclear weapons while
trying to prevent others from obtaining them? Will U.S. pursuit of these
weapons provide incentive and legitimacy to the development of like programs
elsewhere?
-
- The Mainstream Media Project offers the following guests
for live or taped interviews:
-
- John Burroughs (DC): Executive Director, Lawyers Committee
on Nuclear Policy; Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as applying to North
Korea and the U.S.; international law and nuclear policy
- Leon Sigal (NY): (limited availability) Director, Northeast
Asia Cooperative Security Project, Social Science Research Council; author,
"Disarming Strategies: Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea
- Peter Hayes (CA): Co-director, Nautilus Institute for
Security and Sustainable Development; what policies might work in negotiating
with North Korea; security affairs in the Asian-Pacific region
- Natalie Goldring (DC): Executive Director, Program on
Global Security and Disarmament, University of Maryland; international
arms trade, arms control; U.S. defense budget and expenditures
- David Albright (DC): Physicist; President, Institute
for Science and International Security; assesses secret nuclear weapons
programs; effects of potential nuclear attacks, nuclear non-proliferation
- Michael Levi (DC): Science and Technology Fellow in Foreign
Policy Studies, Brookings Institute; cooperative threat reduction programs,
nuclear terrorism, missiles
|
