nKorea: Setting conditions that "could inevitabley lead to war ."

North Korea Limits Tests Of Nuclear Site, (New York Times)…Choe Sang-Hun, Nov 12, 2008.

In its first major act of defiance since Senator Barack Obama’s election, North Korea said Wednesday that it would bar international nuclear inspectors from taking soil and nuclear waste samples, which are considered crucial to determining the extent of its weapons program.

North Korea detonated a plutonium-based device in 2006, adding urgency to arduous six-nation talks to halt the North’s nuclear program. As part of the eventual deal, the North made a declaration in June of its nuclear activities. President Bush then said he was prepared to remove North Korea from a list of state sponsors of terrorism, and the North demolished the cooling tower at its Yongbyon nuclear plant.

But it was months before the North was removed from the list, while the United States wrangled with its negotiators over how to verify the North’s nuclear declaration and criticism of the Bush administration — for extracting too few concessions — mounted. Finally, in October, the State Department announced that North Korea had agreed to access “based on mutual consent” to undeclared nuclear sites and “sampling and forensic activities.”

North Korea’s statement on Wednesday contradicted that, and further, warned that if the United States diverged from the joint document “even by one word, it could lead inevitably to war.”