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Threat Assessment II: U.S. May be Overstating North Korean Threat, Experts Say Some experts said U.S. President George W. Bush’s harsh rhetoric toward North Korea in his recent State of the Union address may overstate the threat the country poses, the Los Angeles Times reported today. In his speech, Bush placed North Korea into an “axis of evil,” along with Iran and Iraq. “North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction while starving its citizens,” he said (see GSN, Jan. 30). While not arguing with Bush’s claims, some experts worry Bush will expand the war on terrorism to target North Korea, according to the Times (see GSN, Jan. 30). “The basic language about having weapons of mass destruction and starving its citizens, well, nobody is going to challenge that,” said Scott Snyder, the Asia Foundation’s representative in Seoul. “[Instead], it is the nature of the rhetoric, the bombast that is not backed up by any real policy.” Bush has confused proliferation with combating terrorism, said William Taylor of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “If you want to deal with missile proliferation and missile technology, you can do that, but North Korea is not part of any evil empire connected with the war on terrorism,” Taylor said. North Korea has not been linked to any acts of terrorism in a decade, but it is still on the U.S. State Department’s list of nations that sponsor terrorism, Taylor said. Shortly before leaving office, the Clinton administration was examining the idea of removing North Korea from the State Department list as part of an agreement in which North Korea would have been paid to give up its missile sales, the Times reported (see GSN, Jan. 15). “I’m a Republican, but I’ve got to say that Clinton’s policy on North Korea — constructive engagement and deterrence — was working. Maybe [it was] their own foreign policy that was successful,” Taylor said (Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times, Feb. 7). Wait and See South Korean experts said they are examining what measures the Bush administration will take against Iran and Iraq, the other “axis” nations. The entire Korean peninsula might be heading into a security crisis if the United States takes a harsher stance toward North Korea, some analysts said. The United States might enact measures such as intercepting North Korea ships to block missile exports, and it might stop work on two nuclear reactors promised to North Korea in exchange for a halt on its nuclear weapons development program, analysts said (see GSN, Dec. 17, 2001). Such measures, however, might instead increase the tension on the Korea peninsula, said advisers to South Korean President Kim Dae Jung. “We don’t want war, but the way the U.S. is going might trigger an uncontrollable escalation,” said Moon Chung In, an expert on North Korea and adviser to Kim. “America is making a big mistake” (Larkin/Hiebert, Wall Street Journal, Feb. 7).
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