Posted on 02/06/2003 6:19:08 PM PST by blam
N Korea 'in panic' as it threatens first strike
By Richard Spencer in Beijing and David Rennie in Washington
(Filed: 07/02/2003)
North Korea's Stalinist leadership yesterday threatened a pre-emptive strike as the nuclear weapons crisis and domestic troubles pushed it towards panic measures.
A day after Pyongyang claimed to have restarted a nuclear reactor capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium, the regime issued its most immediate threats yet of military action.
Foreign Ministry officials told western journalists that the country was not ruling out a pre-emptive strike.
"The United States says that, after Iraq, we are next," Ri Pyong-gap, a spokesman, said. "But we have our own countermeasures. Pre-emptive attacks are not the exclusive right of the US."
Pyongyang is widely regarded as already having nuclear weapons.
The state newspaper Rodong Sinmum said Washington's announcement that it was putting 24 B-1 and B-52 bombers on alert in the Pacific suggested that "a new war will inevitably break out on the Korean peninsula and it will develop to be a nuclear war".
The White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, played down Pyongyang's threats, saying: "We've heard such talk from North Korea before.
"Obviously the United States is very prepared for…any contingencies. But this type of talk, and the type of actions North Korea has engaged in, or says it's engaging in, only hurt North Korea."
The Bush administration has repeatedly insisted that events in North Korea do not yet constitute a full-blown crisis.
There are powerful figures in Washington who argue that North Korea should be left to "stew in its own juices" until it collapses. Others, including British officials, fear that North Korea may develop so large a nuclear arsenal that it has spare warheads to sell to fellow rogue nations.
Most analysts agree that the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, is using the West's focus on Iraq to try to wring new economic concessions.
Two of the country's neighbours, China and South Korea, have shown little sign of believing any outbreak of war is truly imminent. The South has continued its "Sunshine Policy" of detente. The first official tourist trip between the countries ended yesterday.
Some Korea-watchers suggest that Pyongyang's rhetoric is the last throw of the dice of a country on the verge of collapse. It is now generally acknowledged that economic reforms carried out last summer have failed. All North Korea has on its side are its weapons, including missiles that can reach Japan and enough artillery to lay waste to Seoul.
Diplomats in Pyongyang said there is no immediate sign of panic or increased military activity on the streets.
• Oliver Poole in Los Angeles writes: A Korean-born businessman has been arrested in America for allegedly spying for North Korea.
John Juongwoong Yai, 59, was said to have sought to obtain "top secret" documents and recruit agents who would infiltrate the US government. He was held at his home in Santa Monica, Los Angeles, after a five-year investigation. The FBI said he had recruited someone to work in the Los Angeles District Attorney's office.
Yai, who was born in South Korea, and his wife were charged with conspiracy.
. . .Saddam has good friends.
Nah, NK is simply trying to extort.
I can't quite believe I'm saying this, but the above statement does Stalin a disservice. Stalin may have been a madman, but he was a much saner mad man than Kim. The north Korean's are a joke; the real threat, as it was in the past and as it is now, is China.
Same as it ever was.........
Widely regarded by whom? I'm thinking the reaction (or lack of same) of China, South Korea, and the U.S., rather implies they think the opposite. So far this is a "crisis" largely because the North Koreans say that it is, and it makes great press. The "pressure" the U.S. is putting on consists of a single aircraft carrier steaming where it's steamed a thousand times before. Nothing new here. Kim is trying to whip his starved, exhausted people into a martial frenzy, and there's not much sign that even they are buying into this one.
I have noticed, though, that the more rabid leftists have stopped calling for the draft and for invasion of North Korea. Somebody finally figured out to be careful what they ask for.
No, but massive, apocalyptic counter-attacks sure are. Choose wisely.
FReeper Gets Internal N. Korea Documents via FNN; Concern Now Is Over Public-Order Collapse (Hot!)
It looks like N. Korea might be on the verge of collapse.
Thanks. I saw that yesterday too. That's why I highlighted the 'verge of collapse' part of this article. That would be neat if they just collapsed internally.
If it does go down like that I'd pay a very large sum of money to see the looks on certain smartass South Korean college student faces when the truth about their idol Kim comes out.
That is why politicians on both political spectrums want to keep the border, DMZ. It will be the federation of some kind. All industries which would be relocating to China or S.E. Asia will go to N. Korea. What China is to America will be what N. Korea is to S. Korea.
Otherwise, at least a few million N. Korean migrants will flood into Seoul and its neighborhood, crowding the already crowded area further, causing the collapse of real-estate values in the area. Mutual hatred between dirt poor migrants and well-off local residents will ensue. And well-off ones will flee to the further south.
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