Posted on 03/13/2003 2:10:09 PM PST by vannrox
North Korea threatens to attack US
North Korea would launch a ballistic missile attack on the United States if Washington made a pre-emptive strike against the communist state's nuclear plant, the man described as Pyongyang's "unofficial spokesman" said yesterday. Kim Myong-chol, who has links to the Stalinist regime, told foreign reporters in Tokyo that a US strike on the nuclear plant at Yongbyon "means nuclear war". "If American forces carry out a pre-emptive strike on the Yongbyon facility, North Korea will immediately target, carry the war to the US mainland," he said, claiming that New York, Washington and Chicago would be "aflame". A pre-emptive US strike on Yongbyon is one of the strategic scenarios in the crisis over North Korea's nuclear arms program. The US has deployed 24 long-range bombers to the Pacific base of Guam capable of launching such a strike. Mr Kim, who has written a text studied by North Korean military and political leaders, predicted that Pyongyang would restart a reprocessing plant to make weapons-grade plutonium this month. A nuclear weapon would be produced by the end of April, with another five produced by the end of the year. This was on top of a suspected nuclear arsenal of 100 weapons. The ultimate aim of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il was the "neutralisation of the American factor" in the region, Mr Kim said. This would be achieved by striking a non-aggression pact with the US, or becoming an official nuclear power, thereby making the US nuclear umbrella in the region irrelevant. "Both ways, Kim Jong-il is a winner," he said. "By the end of the year, I predict Bush will be in Pyongyang suing for peace," he said. While his comments are extreme, they match the heated and belligerent rhetoric of North Korea, which has previously warned of nuclear war and turning the cities of its enemies into a "sea of ashes". The Bush Administration yesterday made renewed calls on China and other countries in the region to help broker a solution to the crisis. In a televised news conference, Mr Bush said North Korea's nuclear arms program was a regional issue. "I say regional because there's a lot of countries that have got a direct stake into whether or not North Korea has nuclear weapons," Mr Bush said. "China clearly has a stake as to whether or not North Korea has a nuclear weapon." The Bush Administration is pushing for multilateral talks with North Korea, while Pyongyang wants direct talks with Washington. US Secretary of State Colin Powell told a US Senate committee: "We have a number of diplomatic initiatives under way, some of them very, very quietly under way, to see if we cannot get a multilateral dialogue started." Yesterday, the US also flagged the possible withdrawal of its 37,000 troops from South Korea, part of the rethink of a deployment in place since the end of the Korean War in 1953. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the US was consulting South Korea and he suspected "we'll end up making some adjustments there". "Whether the forces come home or whether they will move further south of the (Korean) peninsula or whether to some neighbouring area are the kinds of things that are being sorted out," he said at a meeting in Germany.
This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/03/07/1046826530206.html
By Shane Green
Tokyo
March 8 2003
Could be true, if there is a Pyonyang left, otherwise he'll have whoever survived as their "leader" signing some form of surrender agreement on a pile of ashes that was once their capital....
The good news is, their missiles can reach Hollywood, but Orange County is out of range.
Having Star Wars in orbit a few years ago would have been damn useful about now. Thanks, libs.
I think he is still working on Iraq, although he is going slower than we would like in an apparently unsuccessful effort to get the nine votes that would make the veto crowd look like cowards.
And our priority remains, Iraq. Iraq has attacked us and others. NKorea has not, except with so many words and that plane intercept thing the other day.
I don't know what the right way to handle NKorea is. A preemptive strike makes sense, but do you do it now when they may not even have a bomb? Or do you do it 6 months from now when they may only have 1-3 and the US has more missle defense systems in place.
Secondly, China and Russia have refused to help us solve the Iraq problem. Despite their talk, NKorea is a bigger threat to China and Russia than they are to the US. And the US is doing nothing to help denuke NKorea, openly stating that they prefer to leave it to the "regional powers".
Now I don't agree that we should leave it with the regional powers forever, but you have to love the irony of the Chinese and Russians sweating over NKorea while they left us out on a limb with Iraq.
I wonder if all those Peaceniks who were agaisnt the Missile Defense System want to rethink their postion now?
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