U.S., allies see limited options for dealing with nuclear N. Korea

SEOUL, South Korea — As North Korea puts the finishing touches on its nuclear weapons program, the United States and its allies have limited options to prevent one of the world's poorest and most erratic regimes from becoming a nuclear power.

In a matter of weeks, faint hopes that North Korea might be coaxed through multinational talks into voluntarily dismantling its nuclear facilities have all but evaporated.

The Bush administration appears to have ruled out any kind of pre-emptive strike on North Korea, which with its conventional artillery alone could inflict massive casualties on neighboring South Korea and the more than 30,000 U.S. troops stationed here. With diplomacy failing and military action seen as unviable, nonproliferation experts have begun to speak despairingly of the inevitability of a nuclear North Korea.

U.S. spy satellites have detected what could be the groundwork for an underground nuclear test around the city of Kilju, officials said Friday. There are other bad signs as well. The North Koreans last weekend launched a missile into the Sea of Japan, possibly a new ballistic

missile that could reach U.S. bases in South Korea. The main North Korean nuclear reactor at Yongbyon has been shut down in apparent preparation for the extraction of more plutonium for bomb-making purposes.

If that happened, according to a report released last week by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, Calif., North Korea could have eleven nuclear bombs by next year.

"It looks like North Korea is intent on becoming a nuclear power and the time is running out to stop it," Park Jin, a South Korean legislator and member of the National Assembly's defense committee, said Friday.

The CIA has believed for some time that North Korea might have one or two nuclear weapons, and Pyongyang itself announced Feb. 10 that it had nuclear capability. But it has not been officially deemed by the international community to be a nuclear power because it has not actually tested a device.

"The general working assumption is that they could test with relatively little warning if they choose to do so," a U.S. official in Washington said Friday. The factors in their decisions would likely be "more political than technical."

Among American policymakers, there is a long-standing epithet for North Korea as the "land of lousy options." Never has it been more the case as they watch with a largely helpless feeling from the sidelines as Pyongyang puts its nuclear program on fast-forward.