THE RISING EAST
U.S. can't take North Korea's diatribes and threats lightly
By Richard Halloran
The United States and North Korea have once again reached an impasse in their long-distance negotiations through the press.
The North Koreans have demanded that Washington sign a nonaggression pact as part of a settlement of disputes on the peninsula. In return, Pyongyang says it will consider halting its nuclear weapons program and sales of ballistic missiles to other countries. The Bush administration has flatly refused.
The government of Kim Jong Il, known in Pyongyang as the "Dear Leader," said last week through its official news agency that the Korean Peninsula "is on the verge of war." The only way of preventing a catastrophe, the government said, "is to conclude a nonaggression treaty."
In response, Secretary of State Colin Powell told a news conference in Washington: "We will not bargain or offer inducements for North Korea to live up to the treaties and agreements it has signed," several of which require Pyongyang not to produce nuclear arms.
"What we can't and won't do," Powell said, "is reward North Korea for its misbehavior."
Associated Press
North Korea is likely to be encouraged in its demands of the United States by the presidential election victory last week of Roh Moo-hyun because Pyongyang had openly advocated that South Koreans vote for him. Roh, who is to take office in February, has pledged to continue President Kim Dae-jung's pursuit of dialogue with the North and took an anti-American stance in his campaign.
Millennium Democratic Party candidate Roh Moo-hyun won South Korea's presidency last week and has pledged to work closely with North Korea to reconcile the two nations' differences.
North Korea has been seeking the nonaggression pact to preclude the United States from mounting a pre-emptive strike. It has alleged that the United States is planning such an assault despite President Bush's pledge to the contrary.
Powell reiterated that pledge: "North Korea knows the United States does not intended to start a war with North Korea."
Nonetheless, Bush has declared that the United States could strike first if it had evidence of an imminent attack. U.S. and South Korean war planners have identified North Korean targets that could be taken out if North Korea begins to assemble its forces for war, according to U.S. officers.
Seoul and the United States, which has 37,000 troops in South Korea, would have 48 to 72 hours of warning if the North Koreans mobilized forces deployed close to the 151-mile-long Demilitarized Zone that divides the peninsula.
Intelligence would detect radio traffic, troops and armored vehicles moving, artillery being rolled out of caves and other signs. The United States could put a bomber over North Korea from the continental United States in 24 hours.
The North Korean threat hardly seems credible. Its army, while large, is equipped with many obsolete weapons and is short of fuel and spare parts. The economy has been in a tailspin for a decade, and working people rarely have a decent meal. An estimated 1 million to 2 million North Koreans have died in a nation that must rely on donated food to survive at all.
Thus, it might be tempting to brush off North Korea's diplomacy by diatribe and threats of war as so much bluster from a painfully weak nation. That would be a mistake, because North Korean leaders are so ignorant of the outside world that they might miscalculate.
The eccentric North Korean leader has wrapped himself in a cult of personality similar to that of his father, the late "Great Leader," Kim Il Sung. Russian influence, which once restrained Pyongyang, has faded.
Chinese leaders have told the United States they have little influence over Kim Jong Il but will keep his regime on enough life support to survive.
Analysts of North Korea worry that Kim Jong Il will seek to take advantage of U.S. preoccupation with Iraq.
U.S. military officers will not say so in public, but they are worried that U.S. forces are stretched too thin to fight Iraq and North Korea at the same time. In the Gulf War of 1991, the United States had 2 million men and women in the military. Today, the forces are down to 1.4 million.
In the 10 weeks since Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly confronted the North Koreans with evidence that they had resumed their nuclear weapons program, the North has made at least seven demands of the United States.
One is for the nonaggression pact. The second is for a peace treaty to replace the truce that ended the Korean War of 1950-53. The third is for withdrawal of American troops from South Korea. The fourth is the establishment of diplomatic relations. The fifth is to have the United States extend most-favored-nation trade status to North Korea. The sixth demand is for U.S. compensation paid to the North for lost missile sales.
And last, Pyongyang has demanded that President Bush remove from North Korea his "axis of evil" designation, also bestowed on Iraq and Iran.
Richard Halloran formerly was a New York Times correspondent in Asia and Washington. Reach him at oranhall@hawaii.rr.com.
