Posted on 09/23/2004 3:34:27 PM PDT by HAL9000
SEOUL, Sept. 23 (Yonhap) -- North Korea threatened Thursday to turn Japan into a "nuclear sea of fire" if the United States attacks it with nuclear weapons.The threat -- one of the most searing against Japan -- followed a report in Tokyo North Korea's military appears to be preparing to test-fire a missile that can cover most of Japan.
North Korea is currently in deep conflict with Japan over a number of issues, including Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program. The communist country has long complained that Japan blindly supports Washington's campaign to isolate and stifle it.
North Korea's main newspaper Rodong Sinmun said the large U.S. military bases in Japan would come under its attack in case a nuclear war breaks out in this part of the world. About 70,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Japan.
"If the United States ignites a nuclear wear, the U.S. military bases in Japan would serve as a detonating fuse to turn Japan into a nuclear sea of fire," the paper said in an article.
The article, carried by the North's Korean Central News Agency, claimed that the danger of a nuclear war in Northeast Asia keeps increasing as a result of Washington's push to realign its military presence in this part of the world.
"The U.S. selection of Japan as the most important vantage point in implementing its Korean and Asian military strategy is designed to put into practice its long-range attack strategy," it said.
The article gave no direct mention of the North's nuclear capability. When the North refers to its nuclear capability, it says only that it has "nuclear deterrent."
U.S. officials believe that the North may already have one or two atomic bombs and possess enough weapons-grade plutonium to make several more.
Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported in its Thursday edition that Japanese and U.S. intelligence officials have determined from satellite images and other methods that military vehicles, soldiers and missile scientists were converging around multiple Rodong missile launch sites in the North.
The paper cited multiple government officials as confirming the North's activities.
The brisk North Korean military movements, the paper said, could be part of the communist country's preparations to test-fire a missile.
In 1998, North Korea sent shock waves through the region by test-firing a missile which flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific Ocean. It has since been suspected of developing longer-range missiles.
North Korea's missile development has been regarded as a major threat to regional security, on top of its recent suspected nuclear weapons drive.
Pyongyang declared a moratorium on missile tests in September 1999 and in May 2001 extended the decision until 2003.
In a historic summit with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in September 2002, and again in May this year, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il promised to continue to keep the moratorium.
However, South Korean officials downplayed the Japanese report, saying that the North's military activities could be part of its annual training exercises.
"Recently, activities related with missiles have been detected and it's highly likely that it could be a routine and annual exercise," Vice Unification Minister Rhee Bong-jo told reporters.
South Korean defense officials also gave a similar assessment. Brig. Gen. Nam Dae-yeon, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry, said earlier that the militaries of South Korea and the United States were closely cooperating to monitor the North Korean move.
The North's Rodong missiles have a range of up to 1,300 kilometers, a distance that covers most of Japan, except the southernmost island of Okinawa.
If North Korea is really preparing to test-fire a missile, it would take from several days up to two weeks to put it into action, Yomiuri Shimbun said.
In response, Japan has deployed an Aegis-guided destroyer and intelligence collectors, such as EP-3 aircraft, to the East Sea between Japan and the Korean Peninsula, the paper said.
Intelligence officials are also paying keen attention to the possibility of the North test-firing a longer-range Taepodong-2 missile, since a Taepodong launch site is near the Rodong missile sites, the report said.
Taepodong-2 missiles are believed to be capable of striking a target within a range of 6,000 kilometers, which means that it can also hit far-western parts of the United States, such as Alaska and Hawaii.
Why should they? They are under our nuclear umbrella, without the expense
Kim has gone looney tunes. You'd think he got his rhetoric from Baghdad Bob.
Hey, that sounds like a plan! We can sit back and say, hmm, maybe that mushroom cloud is a forest fire. What? They sold all their trees to China? Well, goodness. We have no idea what happened.....US State Dept.
Will Jimmy get another peace prize?
Hai!!
Remember that "missing" Plutonium? The samurai spirit is still there, far below the surface.
LOL
>>>"a pre-emptive nuclear strike on North Korea...the only thing that comes to mind is, "Where are we going, and why are we in this hand basket."
Didn't we learn an important message on 9/11? When a declared foe calls repeatedly for our country's destruction and builds weapons to do so, a pre-emptive strike by us should be a quite valid option - particularly if they have nukes.
Do we lose Honolulu or Ankorage first, and then decide?
It's one thing for a country to clandestinely build nukes, but an entirely different for them to build nukes and threaten the Western world with them.
Would you call the police if a neighbor is threatening to shoot you and your family with this [insert some specific weapon here that you know or suspect he has]?
Nukes take out cities. The dimensions change when you get to that level of destruction.
Needless to say, the mainland Chinese can squelch this guy... if they wanted or needed to. But they are letting him out on the leash. Maybe we should complain to Wal-Mart instead.
Hoppy
" Nuclear sea of fire, huh? I wish I was Koizumi. I'd go on TV and give Kim the Finger. "
I wish I was Koizumi. I'd go on TV and ask Kim if he recalls a place called NANGKING !
Wow, "sea of fire" is kind of threatening. I'd say N. korea is going to get a fat lip for their big mouth. Wouldn't it suck if Japan were the first and second country to get whacked with the bomb?
They're gonna nuke Japan? Come on. Do something original.
The days for tyrants making such statements ended with 9-11. Take this guy at his word and take pre-emptive action!
Baghdad Bob! Gee, I kinda miss his daily statements.
The chuckles and laughs were so welcome during those
days. I never missed one of his reports! LOL!
You don't have to do this poll for Japan; they are already signed onto our missile defense program -- in fact, for the first time since 1954, they are not going to budget for a new destroyer in the next budget, and will instead redirect those funds for missile defense. I believe that the figure that they have in mind is $10 billion or so dollars for the overall project over the next few years, though it has been a few weeks since I had time to follow this one. (I did glimpse an article somewhere that indicated that there may even be more money allocated to defense that had been originally planned -- interesting, since I had seen earlier indications that there actually might be a small decrease.)
In my opinion, North Korea is becoming perilously close to finding out how close to the truth the FAS's estimation of Japan as a paranuclear state is; even more interesting is Global Security's very similiar recap of recent events in Japan.
I personally think North Korea is poking at the wrong porcupine here. While they claim not to have forgotten the lessons of World War II, I think North Korea is badly mistaken if they think that the spirit of the Kempeitai is entirely eradicated -- Kim's little program of disruptors/chosensoren might well prove to be shot through with double agents and intercepted information.
Almost all MSM analysis is based on the stupid myth that the North Korean forces are actually capable of doing this.
It is similar to the lefty establishment's now-forgotten myth that Amercian forces would not be able to cope with Saddam Hussein's "battle-hardened" army at the beginning of Desert Shield.
A similar myth about China and Taiwan is so heavily entrenched that even many Freepers buy into it and who can forget the dire warnings, circa 10-01, about the ten foot tall Afghan mountain man, Slayer of Empires?
The left-establishment's idiot-savant in chief, Kennedy fossil John Kenneth Galbraith, went so far as to predict that American soldiers in Afghanistan "would be as befuddled and helpless as they were in Vietnam."
In fact, South Korea has very strong forces of its own, the North's numerical advantage is not huge but the South's qualitative advantage is.
The NKs would be massacred if they tried to come south but media defeatists use that threat to hold the line for him until he can build up a really viable nuclear arsenal.
Sovereign nations should lookout for their own best interests. In the event that the US elects John Kerry (and remember we DID do Clinton TWICE so it could happen) then they have a responsibility to defend their own citizens.
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