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Date Posted: 05:36:41 04/22/03 Tue
Author: DammitBoy!
Author Host/IP: cache-rl05.proxy.aol.com / 152.163.189.101
Subject: U.S. Has Plans to Bomb N. Korea Nuke Plant......

CANBERRA (Reuters) - The Pentagon has drawn up plans to bomb a North Korea nuclear plant if it reprocesses spent nuclear fuel rods, according to an Australian newspaper report on Tuesday that was quickly downplayed by Australian officials.

Citing "well-informed Canberra sources close to U.S. thinking," The Australian's foreign editor Greg Sheridan said the U.S. has produced a blueprint to bomb Yongbyon if the plant went ahead with reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods to make atom bombs.

He said the plan also involved a U.S. strike against North Korean heavy artillery in the hills above the border with South Korea, threatening the capital Seoul and about 17,000 U.S. troops stationed nearby.

But Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer shrugged off the report, which came on the eve of a meeting in Beijing between the United States, China and North Korea aimed at ending a six-month stand-off over Pyongyang's suspected arms programs.

Western intelligence agencies believe no reprocessing has yet taken place but Pyongyang has a history of raising the stakes ahead of major talks as an attention-grabbing negotiating tactic.

"It's one of these stories which probably is perfectly true...but there again, the Americans would have contingency plans for any range of different military option," Downer told an Australian radio station.

"Militaries do this sort of contingency planning the whole time and you shouldn't extrapolate from that that this is the policy of the American administration to bomb this plant."

North Korea last Friday seemed to say it had begun reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods in what would be a dramatic escalation in the row between the reclusive Communist state and the United States. But the claim apparently was the result of a translation error.

Reprocessing the fuel rods would be the most provocative step North Korea has taken since the nuclear dispute flared in October, when Washington said Pyongyang admitted to a covert program to make highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.

Downer dismissed suggestions the United States was preparing any military action against North Korea, saying the U.S. administration was rightly going down the path of trying to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

"The military option, obviously, by any standards, is not an attractive option," said Downer, whose country is one of only a handful of Western nations to have diplomatic ties to Pyongyang.

© Copyright The Associated Press


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YeeHaw! We're going to North Korea!

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