Is an impoverished North Korea really a threat to global security?
Absolutely. It has a million-man army ready to cross a demilitarized zone just 25 miles from Seoul. North Korea has an array of missiles that can reach Japan from a launching site in Taepodong, on the east coast, and it is developing missiles that could hit Alaska. North Korea also exports missile parts and knowhow. Iran’s Shahab-3 missiles, for instance, owe much to North Korean technology. Q: How quickly could North Korea develop nuclear weapons? A: Actually, it may already have one or two nukes built from plutonium extracted before 1994, the CIA says. If Kim follows through on threats to fire up its mothballed nuclear facilities, spent fuel rods could be quickly converted into weapons-grade plutonium. The International Atomic Energy Agency thinks North Korea could restart the reactor in two months and have a half-dozen warheads sometime this summer. Q: Why is this happening now? A: There are two theories: First, Pyongyang may be gambling that the U.S. is too fixated on Iraq to do an
