U.S. sees North Korean leader's fear as asset Thom Shanker/NYT NYT Monday, May 12, 2003 WASHINGTON In the face of new evidence that Kim Jong Il, the leader of North Korea, has lived recently in fear of an American attack, Defense Department officials say they are contemplating ways to hold him and his inner circle at risk as a way of bolstering deterrence on the peninsula. According to intelligence reports, Kim vanished from public view for 50 days beginning just before the war to depose Saddam Hussein, a time when the Pentagon also moved bombers into the Korean area of...