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 Was North Korea testing a mini-Nuke? 
  
 Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit 
  
 sent by Dave Muller (southnews) - Oct 17, 2006 
  
 Was North Korea testing a mini-Nuke? 
  
 The Democratic People's Republic of Korea may have just tested its own 
 mini-nuke, which would be the ultimate deterrent to US neoconservative 
 aggression. The reason, of course, is because it would directly 
 challenge the Bush administration, which has been pushing, since it took 
 office, for the development of mini-nuclear weapons, which leads to the 
 question of how one nation, in pursuit of mini-nukes, can decide that 
 another nation cannot pursue the same type arsenal. 
  
 Labeling the test a failure buys the Republican Party more time 
 politically by implying that Bush can stop the development of North 
 Korea's nuclear program before it is a serious threat to American 
 interests  and delaying the revelation of yet another neoconservative 
 foreign policy disaster until after the midterm elections. 
  
                              *** 
  
 North Korea's Mini-Nuke? 
  
 by Dan Mick 
  
 As the "failure" or "partial success" of an apparent atomic bomb by 
 North Korea reverberates around the world, with many automatically 
 judging the test a failure, ignored is the Bush administration's concept 
 of "usable nukes," or "mini-nukes." The Democratic People's Republic of 
 Korea may have just tested its own mini-nuke, which would be the 
 ultimate deterrent to neoconservative aggression. Labeling the test a 
 failure buys the Republican Party more time politically by implying that 
 Bush can stop the development of North Korea's nuclear program before it 
 is a serious threat to American interests  and delaying the revelation 
 of yet another neoconservative foreign policy disaster until after the 
 midterm elections. 
  
 The Argument for "Failure" 
  
 Early nuclear bomb program designs are virtually always assumed to be 
 gun-type fission weapons. This design, though inefficient, is by far the 
 easiest to build. They are so easy to build that the United States 
 dropped the first one on Hiroshima without a field test. It has been 
 suggested that North Korea had a working design 15 years ago and has 
 been making improvements ever since. In an interview on The Daily Show 
 with John Stewart, former secretary of state James Baker said North 
 Korea "had a crude nuclear device even when I was Secretary of State." 
 If the bomb is a uranium gun-type fission bomb, it would require a 
 minimum of 20 kg of highly enriched uranium and would produce a minimum 
 five-kiloton explosion if successful. The first nuclear test by any 
 country is, for unknown reasons, assumed to be five kilotons or larger. 
 If the blast in North Korea was less than one kiloton, and indeed a 
 gun-type nuclear device, it would suggest the probability of a dud, 
 where the chain reaction was not sustained. There is also the strong 
 possibility that the device is a more dangerous type of bomb  a 
 plutonium-based implosion bomb theoretically capable of fitting on one 
 of the DPRK's many threatening missiles, and small enough to be "usable" 
 on a battlefield. 
  
 Theories 
  
 Several theories have been put forward to describe the small size of 
 North Korea's first nuclear test. The general consensus is failure, 
 though the reported size of the blast, depending on the anonymous 
 official quoted (or not), is anywhere from an equivalent of 200 tons of 
 TNT, to 500 tons or more. This variation, and the tendency of news 
 agencies to quote a middle figure, suggests that accurate intelligence 
 about the nature of the blast is sparse. Here are some current leading 
 theories: 
  
 (1) The yield could be higher than claimed  up to the level of the 
 Hiroshima bomb, as Russian sources have said. The U.S. government and 
 its allies could be trying to minimize the political fallout, hoping the 
 American electorate won't realize the full extent of the damage caused 
 by an intentional failure of diplomacy. Moreover, the Bush 
 administration's refusal to hold direct talks is likely tied to its 
 support of wasteful spending on a missile-defense system that won't 
 work, imperiling the American people and those within striking distance 
 of Kim Jong-Il's substantial missile capability. The cost to U.S. 
 taxpayers will be partially offset by the many countries that will 
 purchase the American/Japanese technology and hardware to satisfy their 
 own state-terrorized citizens and domestic neoconservatives. 
  
 (2) Estimates could falsely indicate a small yield, given the 
 unpredictability of seismic measurement due to differences in geology 
 between known desert test sites and unfamiliar mountain caves in Korea. 
  
 (3) It could be that the bomb "fizzled," or failed to sustain a full 
 chain reaction. The bomb could have malfunctioned as a result of poor 
 design and limited experience. At first this seems the most reasonable 
 explanation, considering the size of the blast, but it relies on an 
 assumption that North Korea is not capable of creating a properly 
 designed bomb after 15 years of development. With the aid of A.Q. Kahn, 
 the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, North Korea is likely to have 
 extensive bomb-making know-how, experience, raw materials, and hardware. 
  
 In addition, China was informed about the test less than an hour in 
 advance, which indicates a level of confidence bordering on certainty. 
 What if it failed completely? It would have been politically safer to 
 announce that the test would go ahead soon, then wait for the successful 
 test before saying anything more. 
  
 It is also possible that a difficult and more sophisticated larger-yield 
 design was tested to gain maximum nuclear knowledge to offset the 
 diplomatic risk and cost. This would be considered a technical failure, 
 but still a tremendous breakthrough. Rumors have also circulated about a 
 North Korean thermonuclear bomb  an extremely unlikely 
 worse-than-worst-case scenario. 
  
 (4) The yield is intentionally small. This is a likely scenario for 
 several reasons: Estimates on the number of nuclear weapons possessed by 
 the DPRK are based on suspected plutonium stock from fuel rods extracted 
 from DPRK reactors. The gun-type bombs mentioned above can only be made 
 with uranium-235  not plutonium-239. North Korea is believed to have 
 enriched unknown quantities of uranium, so it is possible the test is a 
 gun-type bomb, but the apparent focus on, and desire for, plutonium 
 suggests a different bomb design  the more challenging, efficient, 
 lighter, potentially smaller, yet maybe much more destructive 
 missile-mountable implosion design. North Korea is believed to possess 
 enough plutonium for four to 13 bombs. 
  
 A plutonium-based implosion bomb can be made much smaller than a 
 gun-type atomic bomb  even shoulder-fired in advanced programs (see the 
 Nuclear Posture Review for notes on mini-nukes). Primitive gun-type 
  
 [continued in next message] 
  
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