Clinton Defense Secretary Urges Strike Against North Korea

Former U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry today urged a pre-emptive strike to prevent the launch of a North Korean long-range missile (see GSN, June 21).

Perry and former Assistant Defense Secretary Ashton Carter called on U.S. President George W. Bush to declare that should Pyongyang toward a missile flight, Washington would destroy the Taepodong 2 before it could be launched. In a Washington Post commentary today, they recommend launching a cruise missile with a high-explosive warhead from a submarine.

“The effect on the Taepodong would be devastating,” they wrote. “The multistory, thin-skinned missile filled with high-energy fuel is itself explosive — the U.S. air strike would puncture the missile and probably cause it to explode. The carefully engineered test bed for North Korea’s nascent nuclear missile force would be destroyed.”

“We believe diplomacy might have precluded the current situation,” Perry and Carter added. “But diplomacy has failed, and we cannot sit by and let this deadly threat mature.”

They added that the U.S. missile defense system, which the Bush administration is reportedly considering using, might not be effective (Kessler/Faiola, Washington Post, June 22).

Bush said yesterday that North Korea should keep in place a 1999 moratorium on missile tests, the New York Times reported.

“North Korea has made agreements with us in the past, and we expect them to keep their agreements,” Bush said. “It should make people nervous when a nontransparent regime that has proclaimed they have nuclear warheads fires missiles.”

South Korean officials expressed concern that the dispute could undermine reconciliation efforts with its neighbor.

Meanwhile, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer said the United States would meet with North Korea only if it returns to stalled six-nation talks on its nuclear efforts, despite calls from Pyongyang for dialogue.

“They don’t have to take bad policies to talk to the United States,” Schieffer said (Choe Sang-Hun, New York Times, June 21).

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton also said there would be no direct talks with Pyongyang, the Associated Press reported.

“You don’t normally engage in conversations by threatening to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles,” he said. He said Security Council members are considering potential responses.

China issued a strong statement of concern today, AP reported.

“We are very concerned about the current situation,” said Foreign Ministry official Jiang Yu.

All sides in the dispute should “be determined to realize a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula,” Jiang said. “China stands ready to work with relevant parties in the international community to press ahead with the process.”

Bush lauded China for “taking responsibility in dealing with North Korea” (Burt Herman, Associated Press I/Yahoo!News, June 22).

Japan today questioned whether North Korea was capable of launching a nuclear warhead, Agence France-Presse reported.

“It requires a certain level of technology to minimize the size of a nuclear warhead so as to build a missile that can be loaded with it. But we don’t have information that North Korea has such technology,” Senior Vice Foreign Minister Yasuhisa Shiozaki told parliament.

“So far North Korea has not carried out any nuclear experiment,” added Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe (Agence France-Presse, June 22).

U.S. and allied military and intelligence services are continuing to gather intelligence on the situation from satellites, spy planes, radar on ships and land-based listening posts, AP reported today.

“It’s like watching reality TV,” said military analyst Dan Goure of the Lexington Institute.

The U.S. guided-missile destroyers USS Fitzgerald and USS Curtis Wilbur off the Korean coast are capable of detecting and tracking a missile, a Defense Department official said yesterday.

South Korean aircraft have been flying reconnaissance, said one military official, while Japan confirmed today that it had also sent ships and planes to monitor the developments (Pauline Jelinek, Associated Press II/Yahoo!News, June 22).

A former top State Department official accused the Bush administration of failing to press negotiations to secure the long-range missile test ban agreement with Pyongyang, AP reported today.

“I never understood why they didn’t pick up that negotiation,” Charles Kartman told AP.

A 1999 ballistic missile test moratorium included a U.S. promise of ongoing talks on North Korea’s missile efforts, but no talks occurred after 2000.

“This [1999] moratorium was not intended to be the final deal,” Kartman said (Peter Spielmann, Associated Press III, June 22).

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