[A-List] US imperialism: North Korea

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Interesting that these two articles should appear. Are we being softened up
for a "surgical strike"?


As the US prepares for war, far away a truly dangerous game is being played
out

Soon North Korea could have a nuclear bomb. What will Bush do?

Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington and Jonathan Watts in Tokyo
Thursday December 5, 2002
The Guardian

On the other side of the world from the White House, the brutal dictator of
a rogue state where millions are close to starvation is stealthily acquiring
the nuclear arsenal and missiles to threaten tens of thousands US troops and
two stalwart American allies.

Famously reclusive and repressive, the dictator has banished more than
100,000 of his fellow citizens to notorious prison camps where a quarter of
the inmates die from hunger, and the survivors dine on rats. As his people
starve, he has pursued an ambitious weapons programme, developing a nuclear
missile capability, and developing chemical and biological weapons.

This is the eastern end of George Bush's "axis of evil", and the dictator is
Kim Jong-il, not Saddam Hussein. And the threat posed by North Korea's
recently revealed nuclear weapons programme is much more immediate than
Iraq.

The CIA estimated last month that North Korea had enough plutonium for two
or three nuclear weapons and that its uranium enrichment facility - the
discovery of which in October prompted a showdown that is now being played
out - was two or three years away from producing weapons grade uranium.

South Korea, and the 37,000 US soldiers in the demilitarised zone, are
within easy range of the North's artillery and its battery of Scud
missiles - numbering 500 according to US military estimates - are capable of
reaching the entire Korean peninsula.

Japan is within striking distance of North Korea's Nodong missile, and
Alaska may soon be vulnerable to a long-range version of the Taepodong
missile that could be ready for testing early next year. Pyongyang also has
5,000 tonnes of mustard gas, sarin and other nerve agents, and has been
working on biological weapons - anthrax, cholera and smallpox - for 40
years.

North Korea's foreign minister yesterday rebuffed a call from the UN nuclear
monitoring agency, the IAEA, to abandon its nuclear weapons, and allow site
inspections.

The disarmament appeal was too "unilateral", the foreign minister, Paek
Nam-sun, said in a letter which accused the UN of acting at America's
behest. "There is no change on the principled stand on the nuclear issue."
The North Korean posture defies weeks of diplomatic manoeuvring by America,
Japan, South Korea, Russia, China, and the European Union aimed at forging a
united front on a plan for the peninsula.

US administration officials have fanned out around the world to help build
that consensus, while President Bush has used regional gatherings and
meetings with world leaders to press Washington's case.

Pressure has been exerted on North Korea at the highest levels by its few
international friends. Earlier this week, Russia's Vladimir Putin and
China's Jiang Zemin jointly urged Pyongyang to renew talks with Washington.

But, officially at least, there is no nuclear crisis on the Korean
peninsula - or at least one that in the view of the Bush administration
merits the threat of military action - despite the parallels with Iraq.

While Bush administration officials have been unceasing in their threats of
"regime change" in Iraq, for the time being at least North Korea remains a
crisis they would like to confine to the back burner. At the eastern end of
the "axis of evil", the strategy of choice is diplomacy.

Publicly, officials continue to affirm their commitment to pre-emptive
action to protect America's interests. But the revealed strategy for North
Korea is remarkably different: a patient effort to enlist reliable allies in
Europe and in Asia, as well as China and Russia in a plan to exert maximum
economic leverage and diplomatic pressure on North Korea. Administration
officials have yet to raise the threat of war against Pyongyang.

State department officials deny any contradiction. "It's a mistake to think
that all things are the same," a state department official said. "We don't
have a cookie cutter approach, or a one-size-fits-all approach."

But while Pyongyang is potentially a greater danger to its neighbours than
Baghdad, the prevailing wisdom in Washington is that America cannot afford a
full-blown crisis with North Korea - especially while it is contemplating
military action against Iraq, and its troops remain deployed in Afghanistan.

That realisation is not easy to swallow for some. Brent Scowcroft, the
national security adviser to two Republican administrations who surprised
the White House last summer with his opposition to unilateral military
action against Iraq, recently called for a surgical strike against North
Korea's Yongbyon nuclear site, and lashed out at those opposed to the
opening up of a further front for US troops.

But for now the administration appears committed to diplomacy.

The most concrete result of those efforts so far - the suspension from next
month of oil shipments - emerged from the US, Japanese, South Korean and
European Union consortium that is overseeing the construction of peaceful
nuclear power plants in the North. By last week, the United Nations and the
US were speaking in the same voice when the IAEA called on North Korea to
abandon its weapons programme and submit to inspections.

It is uncertain whether Washington will exert further economic pressure on a
regime where a quarter of the population is dependent on food aid. Until the
nuclear revelations, America had sent 155,000 tonnes of food aid to North
Korea this year. But the state department official indicated that Washington
would not send more aid, despite appeals from the World Food Programme this
week.

The US is also giving short shrift to North Korea's fumbling attempts to
open talks on its nuclear arsenal. "The idea that one should negotiate some
new agreement while in violation of commitments already made is not an
argument US leaders find particularly compelling," the state department
official said.

But Washington and Pyongyang are in the preliminary stage of negotiation.
Despite the rhetoric, Washington is calibrating its approach to remain in
step with Japan and South Korea who remain committed to their own goals of
normalising relations with North Korea.

"If they give up nuclear weapons, they can get more money," Nishio Masanori,
of the Japanese defence agency said. "It is like the 1980s in the Soviet
Union when Gorbachev was forced to put up the white flag because military
buildup had pushed the Soviet Union to the point of collapse."

Some Korea-watchers believe President Bush's success in coordinating the
international response to Pyongyang's weapons programme could bear fruit in
time. "When North Korea looks around and realises that it is completely
isolated diplomatically, that has been the point where in the past people
tended to make compromises," said Katsu Furukawa, a researcher at the
Monterey Institute of International Studies.

"We don't see any signals of provocative action by North Korea. But having
said that, I have to say that I am very cautiously optimistic."

-----

How Clinton came close to bombing

Jonathan Watts
Thursday December 5, 2002
The Guardian

Seoul braced for a biological weapons attack, US forces on high alert in the
demilitarised zone and White House staff arguing over whether to launch a
surgical strike on a nuclear reactor.

This was the scene in 1994 during the last North Korean crisis, though the
world only learned several years later just how close the peninsula came to
a devastating war.

Then as now, the United States uncovered evidence of a nuclear weapons
programme, which North Korea initially refused to give up. Diplomats
negotiated frantically for a solution but participants are now revealing the
terrifying game of "chicken" that was being played behind the scenes.

"The United States came to the brink of initiating war to stop North Korea
from acquiring nuclear weapons," according to a recent article in the
Washington Post by William Perry and Ashton Carter, who were secretary and
assistant secretary of defence during the crisis.

After satellites had discovered a plant in Yongbyon capable of producing
weapons-grade plutonium, they said they spent most of the first half of 1993
planning a war on the Korean peninsula.

"We made our willingness to use military force crystal clear to the North
Koreans by positioning forces to strike Yongbyon and reinforcing our
military units that were deployed to defend South Korea against an onslaught
from the North."

But the projected casualties from a counter-strike by the North were too
much for the Clinton administration to stomach.

Seoul's population of 12 million, as well as 37,000 US troops, are in range
of 500 North Korean artillery pieces dug deep into the mountains on the
border.

To avert tens of thousands of casualties and millions of refugees, a
diplomatic compromise was drawn up: the agreed framework, under which the
North was promised fuel oil and two light-water nuclear reactors in return
for a promise to abandon its plutonium programme.

Although critics condemned the agreement as a reward for an extortionist,
the US administration accepted the deal in the expectation that the North
would collapse within a couple of years so it would never have to live up to
its side of the bargain.

But eight years on, Kim Jong-il is still in power in Pyongyang, the agreed
framework is close to collapse and a re-run of the nuclear chicken game is
closer than it has been at any time since 1994.