Fw: Rumsfeld 'Looks Around The Globe' For Next War - Korea]

["Nello Margiotta" <animarg at tin.it>]

 Subject: Rumsfeld 'Looks Around The Globe' For Next War - Korea
 Date: 19 Mar 2003 18:19:38 -0800
 
 http://www.forbes.com/home_asia/newswire/2003/03/19/rtr912298.html
 
 Forbes
 Reuters
 March 19, 2003
 
 With Iraq in cross hairs, US also watches N. Korea
 By Will Dunham
 
 
 -"We are always vigilant," said a U.S. defense
 official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
 The official told Reuters the Defense Department
 recognizes the risk and is "seeking to mitigate it by
 deploying additional forces to the western Pacific to
 bolster our defensive posture as a deterrent." These
 additional forces include two dozen long-range Air
 Force B-52 and B-1 bombers sent this month to the
 island of Guam in the western Pacific.
 -The United States also sent radar-evading F-117A
 stealth fighters to Kunsan Air Base in South Korea for
 use in the annual joint U.S.-South Korea "Foal Eagle"
 field exercise due to end on April 2. In addition, the
 Pentagon has positioned the aircraft carrier USS Carl
 Vinson in the Western Pacific.
 -"It seems to me that it's appropriate for the United
 States to look around the globe and say, 'Where might
 someone think of taking advantage of that situation
 with respect to Iraq?"' Rumsfeld said.
 
 
 
 
 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is keeping a
 close watch on North Korea to make sure it does not
 try to exploit the military focus on Iraq with
 opportunistic and provocative actions, the Pentagon
 said Wednesday.
 
 With U.S. forces massed for a possible war with Iraq,
 American officials have worried about a simultaneous
 crisis erupting with North Korea as it presses its
 nuclear ambitions.
 
 "We are always vigilant," said a U.S. defense
 official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
 
 The official told Reuters the Defense Department
 recognizes the risk and is "seeking to mitigate it by
 deploying additional forces to the western Pacific to
 bolster our defensive posture as a deterrent." These
 additional forces include two dozen long-range Air
 Force B-52 and B-1 bombers sent this month to the
 island of Guam in the western Pacific.
 
 "This is more driven by events in Iraq than it is by
 events in Pyongyang," the official said. "It's not a
 response to the nuclear situation. It's not meant to
 prepare any sort of pre-emptive strike. It's just
 simply there to prevent potential adversaries from
 taking advantage of the timing."
 
 The United States also sent radar-evading F-117A
 stealth fighters to Kunsan Air Base in South Korea for
 use in the annual joint U.S.-South Korea "Foal Eagle"
 field exercise due to end on April 2. In addition, the
 Pentagon has positioned the aircraft carrier USS Carl
 Vinson in the Western Pacific.
 
 "There's a fine line we have to walk between, on the
 one hand, not wanting to do anything escalatory --
 escalate a diplomatic impasse over the nuclear issue
 into a military crisis -- and, on the other hand, not
 being deterred from doing our normal pattern of
 exercises and training," the official said.
 
 Tensions have been high on the Korean peninsula since
 October, when U.S. officials said North Korea admitted
 to a secret nuclear weapons program. The standoff has
 escalated as North Korea test-fired missiles and
 intercepted a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft patrolling
 international airspace.
 
 Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on March 5
 there is nothing "aggressive or threatening or
 hostile" in the U.S. actions. "It seems to me that
 it's appropriate for the United States to look around
 the globe and say, 'Where might someone think of
 taking advantage of that situation with respect to
 Iraq?"' Rumsfeld said.
 
 Rumsfeld has said while the United States wants to
 resolve the North Korea situation through diplomacy,
 it is capable of waging and winning two major regional
 wars at the same time.
 
 The Pentagon has not detected any indication of shifts
 in North Korea's conventional force posture to suggest
 potential threatening moves to coincide with
 hostilities in Iraq.
 
 
 
 'RATCHETING UP THE PRESSURE'
 
 Eric Heginbotham, an expert on the Korean peninsula at
 the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, said the
 North Koreans are "insecure about the possibility of
 the U.S going after them next" after Iraq. He said it
 is extremely hard to predict what actions North Korea
 might take in the current environment.
 
 "I see a pretty clear pattern of ratcheting up the
 pressure one step at a time. But they've been pretty
 hesitant to take measures that take it past the point
 of absolutely no return," Heginbotham said.
 
 "I think they'll do something to get attention," he
 added, perhaps testing North Korea's No-dong or
 Taepo-dong missiles.
 
 The No-dong is thought to have a range of about 800
 miles , the Taepo-dong-1 a range of up to 1,370 miles
 and the Taepo-dong-2 a range of up to 3,700 miles ,
 according to analysts.
 
 Short of an invasion of South Korea, Heginbotham said
 the most escalatory act North Korea could commit would
 be to reprocess nuclear fuel rods to make
 weapons-grade plutonium for nuclear weapons. "That
 forces a decision on us, which we of course have been
 trying to avoid. And I think there's no really much
 consensus on what we do next," Heginbotham said.
 
 The U.S. government estimates that North Korea already
 may possess one or two nuclear bombs, and could make
 six or eight more if reprocessing takes place.
 Rumsfeld has said North Korea might sell those to
 enemies of America.
 
 Baker Spring, a defense analyst at the Heritage
 Foundation, said he viewed it as unlikely but not
 impossible that the North Koreans would provoke a
 confrontation with the United States.
 
 "Let's take the most obvious and broadest example --
 to actually launch a military incursion into South
 Korea. I have no doubt that even under today's
 circumstances that the United States along with South
 Korea would defeat and utterly destroy the North
 Korean army," Spring said.
 
 "I don't know how long it would take under these
 circumstances. But if that were to happen, I have very
 little doubt that in the end, it would spell the
 demise altogether of the North Korean regime and
 perhaps North Korea."