Posted on 03/07/2003 6:40:59 AM PST by Dog Gone
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 facility, the man described as Pyongyang's "unofficial spokesman" claimed yesterday.
Kim Myong-chol, who has links to the Stalinist regime, told reporters in Tokyo that a US strike on the nuclear facility 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, adding that New York, Washington and Chicago would be "aflame".
A pre-emptive strike on Yongbyon is one of the strategic options 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 leaders, predicted North Korea would restart its reprocessing plant to make weapons-grade plutonium this month.
A nuclear weapon would be produced by the end of next month, with another five by the end of the year, he said. This was on top of a suspected nuclear arsenal of 100 weapons.
The ultimate aim of North Korea's 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," Mr Kim said.
"By the end of the year, I predict Bush will be in Pyongyang suing for peace," Mr Kim 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 his live televised press conference, Mr Bush said North Korea's nuclear 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. "We've got a stake as to whether North Korea has nuclear weapons. 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 but the communist state wants direct talks with Washington.
In the meantime, diplomatic activity is continuing behind the scenes. "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," the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, told a US Senate Committee.
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.
The US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said the US was consulting with 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 "town hall" meeting in Germany.
What do you mean, we haven't been.... What the He!!
"Pardon me, Your Exalted Excellency Father-of-the-People, what is it we can do for you?" (wimper, wimper)
Remember the Big Talk=Small Penis rule.
He who talks the loudest is holding one of two things in his hand: a lousy set of cards or a small penis.
Kim Jong Il is desperately in need of attention. That's what that whole MiG incident was about. This little clown needs the attention of a strict Freudian.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
Well, I had some jumper cables and figured they might act as electrodes if I dropped them in the lake. So I did, and what do you know! I could see the car start to recharge.
Just then a California Highway Patrolman stopped by. He saw what I was doing and he wrote me a ticket for.....
A Salton Battery.
Just the CoNoKos.
<]B^)
And if that nuke arrives via a container ship with "no return address", what then? I understand that nuke material has a distinctive "signature" that will allow us to track it back to the reactor that produced it, but what if that material is delivered via a state-less terror group? These are some of the questions that keep presidents awake at night -- Clinton excepted, of course!
Speaking of fools, this is the perfect illustration for the mental deficients who argue and whine that "why should the U.S. not allow other countries to have nuclear weapons when the U.S. has them?"
Some countries are more responsible than others.
To my knowledge, China and North Korea are the only two countries who have ever threatened another country explicitely, even to the point of naming targets.
For most rational adults, that, right there is enough to answer the stupid question.
I wonder why he named targets beyond the reach of North Korea's missiles? Suitcase bombs? Dirty nukes?
I would say, however, that this insistence in talking directly to the US is nonsense. We have nothing to do with him. The only reason we are engaged at all is to keep the noko's above the 38th parallel. This so-called non-agression pact he wants is bogus too. We haven't attacked in 50yrs. If lil il is feeling lonely and isolated, its not up to us to fill up his dance card. I am saying he can eff off.
There's a lesson there somewhere... just not sure what.
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