Fargo seeks to bolster force
Advertiser News Services
As tensions continue over North Korea's renewed program to build nuclear weapons, Adm. Thomas Fargo, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, has requested that additional military units be moved to bases in the Pacific.
Fargo has asked that two dozen long-range B-1 and B-52 bombers be positioned in Guam and eight F-15E fighter bombers and a number of U-2 and other reconnaissance aircraft be added to forces in Japan and South Korea.
Pentagon officials said the request was prompted by concern that the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk might be sent from the Pacific to the Persian Gulf. The additional Air Force aircraft would compensate for the loss in carrier striking power.
CNN reported on its Web site last night that the Pentagon is also considering keeping the carrier Carl Vinson, now in port at Pearl Harbor, in the Pacific to replace the Kitty Hawk.
Fargo has also asked for about 2,000 more troops, mostly Air Force personnel, to join 37,000 already in South Korea.
The commander's request, which was first reported last night by CBS News, was not made in response to the latest intelligence, defense officials said.
"We plan for a wide variety of scenarios in support of our mission of deterrence in the Asia-Pacific region," said Lt. Cmdr. Jensin W. Sommer of the Pacific Command. "And as a matter of routine policy we don't discuss our future planning."
The Bush administration confirmed yesterday that recent satellite photos show North Korea might be resuming production of weapons-grade plutonium and warned Pyongyang not to build nuclear bombs.
Satellite photos taken in the past two days show covered trucks pulling up to a building at the Yongbyon nuclear complex, where about 8,000 spent fuel rods are stored.
The plant produces weapons-grade material in small batches and by one estimate could produce enough plutonium for a bomb by the end of February. The administration has told congressional officials that within three to six months, the North Koreans would have enough material for three to five new nuclear weapons.
The activity at the Yongbyon nuclear complex increases the pressure for a response from the administration, which has been trying to keep the North Korean crisis out of the spotlight as it presses forward with its campaign to disarm Iraq.
Some experts said they fear the United States might not be able to accept the idea of a North Korea producing a large number of nuclear weapons that it could use, or sell, or that might fall accidentally into the wrong hands. U.S. officials believe Pyongyang already has one or two nuclear weapons.
"I'm increasingly worried that the risks of a North Korean miscalculation are going up rapidly," said Gordon Flake, executive director of the Mansfield Center for Pacific Affairs in Washington. Flake said he still considers a U.S. military strike unlikely, but, "There's a risk of them (North Korea) crossing a publicly unspoken red line and putting us into a real dangerous situation."
Administration officials declined public comment on intelligence reports, but Richard Boucher, the chief State Department spokesman, said that any movement of the fuel rods "would be a very serious development for the international community. Reprocessing the spent fuel is clearly a step in the direction of nuclear weapons," he said, and urged North Korea to abide by its past promises not to build nuclear weapons.
At the same time, U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell emphasized in a speech that the United States "has no intention of attacking North Korea." Powell said the United States wanted to convey this message to North Korea in a way that "makes sense and is unmistakable."
But Fargo's request was among the signs that the administration has not taken the military option off the table.
Pentagon officials described Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as being "immersed in the North Korean crisis," even as he prepares for a possible war on Iraq.
In North Korea yesterday, leader Kim Jong Il launched a nationwide campaign promoting hatred of the United States.
Ignoring international pressure to quickly ease the crisis, North Korean leader Kim inspected a military unit yesterday.
Kim was "greatly satisfied to see all the servicemen trained as indomitable fighters capable of wiping out the aggressors by resolute and merciless blows," said a report by the North's state-run KCNA news agency. The North's 1.1-million-member military is the world's fifth-largest.
Meanwhile, posters promoting confrontation with the United States went up on the walls of North Korean cities and villages, and writers penned poems to rouse the people for a "sacred battle to annihilate the enemies," KCNA said.
"I shout," and "We put the U.S. imperialists to death," were among poems lauding the communist state's Jan. 10 decision to quit the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, it said.
Earlier, an envoy from North Korea said his country will negotiate only with the United States to end the standoff.
Washington said North Korea had admitted having a nuclear weapons program in violation of a 1994 agreement with the United States. The North later expelled U.N. monitors from Yongbyon and then withdrew from an international nuclear arms control treaty.
Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the Vienna, Austria-based U.N. nuclear watchdog, called the North's work at the reprocessing plant "a matter of grave concern."
North Korea's ambassador to Moscow said in Russia yesterday that his government would ignore the Feb. 12 meeting and accused the U.N. agency of serving the U.S. interests.
The International Atomic Energy Agency meeting could recommend the Security Council look at the issue — which could lead to sanctions against the North. Pyongyang has said it would view sanctions as a declaration of war.
North Korea's ambassador to China, Choe Jin Su, yesterday repeated his government's demand for a nonaggression treaty with the United States as the way to defuse the crisis. Washington has ruled out such a treaty but said it could provide a written security guarantee.
Choe said his government rejected U.S. attempts to bring the nuclear standoff before the Security Council and resolve the situation through multilateral efforts by Russia, China and South Korea.
"Here lies the sinister intention of the United States to evade its responsibilities for the blame and create international pressure upon our country," Choe said.
The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg News and Associated Press contributed to this report.
