Posted on 05/19/2009 5:11:24 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Internal political instability led to recent provocations by N. Korea: CIA chief
By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, May 19 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's recent provocations have come from political instability following the alleged health problems of its leader Kim Jong-il late last year, a top U.S. intelligence official said.
"There also are legitimate questions being raised about the internal stability of North Korea, given Kim Jong-Il's health problems, uncertainty about succession, the weak economy, and the persistent food shortages," Leon Panetta, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, told a forum in Los Angeles Monday. "The result is that North Korea remains one of the most difficult and unpredictable threats that we face in that part of the world."
Kim Jong-il is believed to have suffered a stroke and undergone surgery last summer.
After months of disappearance from public view late last year, the reclusive North Korean leader attended a parliamentary meeting last month, limping on his left leg and with his left hand swollen.
Reports said Kim has selected his third and youngest son, Jong-un, 26, as his heir apparent and appointed him as a mid-level official at the North's all-powerful National Defense Commission, through which Kim Jong-il controls the military as well as political and economic affairs.
Panetta said the U.S. intelligence community has improved its skills at getting information on North Korea's internal affairs.
"Like Iran, North Korea is a tough target to penetrate for intelligence purposes, but we're making good progress," he said. "The fact is, we had good notice about the fact that they were going to deploy the Taepo Dong missile and knew pretty well within an hour when that was going to happen."
Panetta was talking about the North's April 5 rocket launch, which drew sanctions from the U.N. Security Council.
Insisting the launch was to orbit a satellite, not a missile test, Pyongyang responded by threatening to boycott six-party nuclear-control talks, conduct further nuclear and ballistic missile tests, and restart its disabled nuclear facilities to enhance its arsenal.
The conjecture is that North Korea's hardline military is taking advantage of a kind of power vacuum created by Kim Jong-il's health failure to derail the multilateral nuclear talks and strengthen the North's military might. Former President Bill Clinton said in Seoul Monday that the political infighting in North Korea has triggered the recent provocations.
"Whenever people who have power in a closed society have any concerns about losing it, things tend to be degenerating to the lowest possible denominator," he said.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in February touched on the sensitive issue of North Korea's leadership change, while she was on an Asian tour.
"There is an increasing amount of pressure because, if there is succession, even if it is a peaceful succession, that creates even more uncertainty and it also may encourage behaviors that are even more provocative as a way to consolidate power within the society," she said.
The chief North Korean official in charge of inter-Korean relations has reportedly been executed in an apparent power struggle in which the hardline military has gained in the wake of strained relations with the South since the inauguration of conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak early last year.
Reports said the North Korean official is a scapegoat for the worsening relations with the South and the new Barack Obama administration, amid complaints by hardline North Koreans that the rapprochement under the two liberal South Korean governments of the past decade has imbued North Koreans with fantasies of aid from South Korea and capitalism.
The Lee administration has stopped short of providing food and other economic aid to the North, citing the North's nuclear ambitions, although his predecessors, Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun, had funneled hundreds of tons of food or fertilizer, respectively, to the impoverished North every year.
The North's parliament last month appointed Chang Song-thaek, Kim's brother-in-law, to the National Defense Commission, apparently to allow Chang to play a caretaker role in a smooth power transition.
Another scenario is that North Korea's ruling Workers' Party and military leaders have been consolidating power around one of the leader's three sons to establish a collective leadership amid growing skepticism that there is time to groom a Kim heir for another dynastic power succession.
None of Kim's three sons has had major posts in the government, military or the ruling Workers' Party, although Kim had consolidated power for two decades in various party and government posts until his father's death in 1994.
Jong-un was born to the leader's third known wife, Ko Young-hee, who died of breast cancer in 2004.
The second son, Jong-chol, 28, who was also born to Ko, seems to be sidelined in the succession due to a weak temperament stemming from a hormone-related disease.
Jong-nam, the oldest son, who was born to the leader's late second wife, Song Hye-rim, has been adrift in China since 2001, when he was caught trying to visit Disneyland in Tokyo with his son and wife on a forged passport.
Ping!
I wonder if he has a son named Kim-ber-lee.
“The fact is, we had good notice about the fact that they were going to deploy the Taepo Dong missile and knew pretty well within an hour when that was going to happen.”
and you had no clue what it was loaded with and you said you probably wouldn’t shoot it down...and you told people it could hit the US...
Is it my imagination, or are we making EXCUSES for North Korea here?
Fascinating that in Communism, a supposedly "classless" society, succession by geniture occurs. Raul takes over for Fidel, Jong-un takes over for Jong-il.
One of its greatest ironies.
I’m looking forward to a Ceaucescu-style retirement party for the Beloved Leader.
I’m sure that the Koreans can out-do the Romanians!
The guy is an attention junkie. He is doing a feel-good elder statesman shtick. Shows up at many high-profile international conferences.
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