Pre-emptive strike against NK intercontinental ballistic missile?

[Gordon B]

Bill Clinton's former Secretary of Defense, William Perry and undersecretary Ashton Carter believe it's incumbent on Bush to launch a strike if North Korea persists in perfecting a missile that could strike US soil. This is in today's WAPO.

If Necessary, Strike and Destroy
North Korea Cannot Be Allowed to Test This Missile

By Ashton B. Carter and William J. Perry
Thursday, June 22, 2006; A29

North Korean technicians are reportedly in the final stages of fueling a long-range ballistic missile that some experts estimate can deliver a deadly payload to the United States. The last time North Korea tested such a missile, in 1998, it sent a shock wave around the world, but especially to the United States and Japan, both of which North Korea regards as archenemies. They recognized immediately that a missile of this type makes no sense as a weapon unless it is intended for delivery of a nuclear warhead.

A year later North Korea agreed to a moratorium on further launches, which it upheld -- until now. But there is a critical difference between now and 1998. Today North Korea openly boasts of its nuclear deterrent, has obtained six to eight bombs' worth of plutonium since 2003 and is plunging ahead to make more in its Yongbyon reactor. The six-party talks aimed at containing North Korea's weapons of mass destruction have collapsed.

Should the United States allow a country openly hostile to it and armed with nuclear weapons to perfect an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering nuclear weapons to U.S. soil? We believe not. The Bush administration has unwisely ballyhooed the doctrine of "preemption," which all previous presidents have sustained as an option rather than a dogma. It has applied the doctrine to Iraq, where the intelligence pointed to a threat from weapons of mass destruction that was much smaller than the risk North Korea poses. (The actual threat from Saddam Hussein was, we now know, even smaller than believed at the time of the invasion.) But intervening before mortal threats to U.S. security can develop is surely a prudent policy.

Therefore, if North Korea persists in its launch preparations, the United States should immediately make clear its intention to strike and destroy the North Korean Taepodong missile before it can be launched. This could be accomplished, for example, by a cruise missile launched from a submarine carrying a high-explosive warhead. The blast would be similar to the one that killed terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq. But the effect on the Taepodong would be devastating. The multi-story, thin-skinned missile filled with high-energy fuel is itself explosive -- the U.S. airstrike 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, and its attempt to retrogress to Cold War threats thwarted. There would be no damage to North Korea outside the immediate vicinity of the missile gantry.

The U.S. military has announced that it has placed some of the new missile defense interceptors deployed in Alaska and California on alert. In theory, the antiballistic missile system might succeed in smashing into the Taepodong payload as it hurtled through space after the missile booster burned out. But waiting until North Korea's ICBM is launched to interdict it is risky. First, by the time the payload was intercepted, North Korean engineers would already have obtained much of the precious flight test data they are seeking, which they could use to make a whole arsenal of missiles, hiding and protecting them from more U.S. strikes in the maze of tunnels they have dug throughout their mountainous country. Second, the U.S. defensive interceptor could reach the target only if it was flying on a test trajectory that took it into the range of the U.S. defense. Third, the U.S. system is unproven against North Korean missiles and has had an uneven record in its flight tests. A failed attempt at interception could undermine whatever deterrent value our missile defense may have.

We should not conceal our determination to strike the Taepodong if North Korea refuses to drain the fuel out and take it back to the warehouse. When they learn of it, our South Korean allies will surely not support this ultimatum -- indeed they will vigorously oppose it. The United States should accordingly make clear to the North that the South will play no role in the attack, which can be carried out entirely with U.S. forces and without use of South Korean territory. South Korea has worked hard to counter North Korea's 50-year menacing of its own country, through both military defense and negotiations, and the United States has stood with the South throughout. South Koreans should understand that U.S. territory is now also being threatened, and we must respond. Japan is likely to welcome the action but will also not lend open support or assistance. China and Russia will be shocked that North Korea's recklessness and the failure of the six-party talks have brought things to such a pass, but they will not defend North Korea.

In addition to warning our allies and partners of our determination to take out the Taepodong before it can be launched, we should warn the North Koreans. There is nothing they could do with such warning to defend the bulky, vulnerable missile on its launch pad, but they could evacuate personnel who might otherwise be harmed. The United States should emphasize that the strike, if mounted, would not be an attack on the entire country, or even its military, but only on the missile that North Korea pledged not to launch -- one designed to carry nuclear weapons. We should sharply warn North Korea against further escalation.

North Korea could respond to U.S. resolve by taking the drastic step of threatening all-out war on the Korean Peninsula. But it is unlikely to act on that threat. Why attack South Korea, which has been working to improve North-South relations (sometimes at odds with the United States) and which was openly opposing the U.S. action? An invasion of South Korea would bring about the certain end of Kim Jong Il's regime within a few bloody weeks of war, as surely he knows. Though war is unlikely, it would be prudent for the United States to enhance deterrence by introducing U.S. air and naval forces into the region at the same time it made its threat to strike the Taepodong. If North Korea opted for such a suicidal course, these extra forces would make its defeat swifter and less costly in lives -- American, South Korean and North Korean.

This is a hard measure for President Bush to take. It undoubtedly carries risk. But the risk of continuing inaction in the face of North Korea's race to threaten this country would be greater. Creative diplomacy might have avoided the need to choose between these two unattractive alternatives. Indeed, in earlier years the two of us were directly involved in negotiations with North Korea, coupled with military planning, to prevent just such an outcome. We believe diplomacy might have precluded the current situation. But diplomacy has failed, and we cannot sit by and let this deadly threat mature. A successful Taepodong launch, unopposed by the United States, its intended victim, would only embolden North Korea even further. The result would be more nuclear warheads atop more and more missiles.

Ashton B. Carter was assistant secretary of defense under President Bill Clinton and William J. Perry was secretary of defense. The writers, who conducted the North Korea policy review while in government, are now professors at Harvard and Stanford, respectively.

[Uli]

What bs. The pre-emptive strike theory should be once and for ever forgotten.

[Doc Martin]

June 22, 2006, 8:29AM
U.S. Says Missile-Defense System Limited

By TERENCE HUNT AP White House Correspondent
© 2006 The Associated Press
BUDAPEST, Hungary — The United States said Thursday that a U.S. missile-defense system under development has "limited operational capability" to protect against weapons such as the long-range missile that North Korea is said to be near firing.
National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley underscored U.S. calls for North Korea to abandon any plans for testing the ballistic missile believed capable of reaching U.S. soil.

Hadley, who briefed reporters while traveling with President Bush in Europe, also spurned a suggestion by former Defense Secretary William Perry that the United States launch a pre-emptive strike against the North Korean missile.
"We think diplomacy is the right answer and that is what we are pursuing," Hadley said when asked about Perry's recommendation in an opinion article published Thursday in The Washington Post.
"The way out of this is for North Korea to decide not to test this missile," Hadley said.
During the past few decades, the United States has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on missile defense systems.
"We have a missile defense system ... what we call a long-range missile defense system that is basically a research, development, training, test kind of system," Hadley said. "It does ... have some limited operational capability. And the purpose, of course, of a missile defense system is to defend .... the territory of the United States from attack."
Hadley said it was hard to say what North Korea would do.
"In terms of North Korean intentions, you know this is a very opaque society, and very hard to read," he said.
"What we need to do is look at their capabilities and that's what we're trying to do," Hadley said.
He said a missile test would disrupt the stalled six-party talks about North Korea's nuclear program.

[Slurpy]

Originally Posted by Doc Martin

BUDAPEST, Hungary — The United States said Thursday that a U.S. missile-defense system under development has "limited operational capability" to protect against weapons such as the long-range missile that North Korea is said to be near firing.

No worries. I volunteer to protect our homeland. Just gimme a lounge chair, a cooler, a bottle or 2 of Jack and a boombox to crank tunes and I'll hang out at the end of the Aleutian Islands chain with my 45mm. I'll shoot down anything that flies overhead. I mean have you seen that "missile"? It's looks like something you could mail order from Ronco (and get a free "Salad Shooter", along with it). Christ, the model rocket I made for the 9th grade science fair looks more operational. I'll run my costs thru Halliburton - a few mil oughta cover it. Rest assured, folks.

[groover]

You should be able to work something out with Dick, Slurpy.

Cheney says N.Korea missile capability rudimentary


Jun 22, 1:31 PM (ET)

Vice President Dick Cheney is seen in Annapolis, Maryland, May 26, 2006. Cheney called North...

Full Image

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney called North Korea's missile capabilities "fairly rudimentary" on Thursday despite fears Pyongyang is preparing a test launch of a weapon that could reach the United States.

In an interview with CNN, Cheney seemed to downplay the threat from North Korea's missile program but said Washington was closely monitoring the apparent preparations for a launch that would break Pyongyang's 1999 moratorium.

The United States has been saying for about a week that there is evidence North Korea might test-fire a long-range ballistic missile and has activated a ground-based interceptor missile-defense system in case Pyongyang goes ahead.

Cheney, according to a transcript of the CNN interview to be broadcast later on Thursday, said North Korea seems to have improved the range of its missiles but suggested the program still lacks sophistication.

"We believe it does have a third stage added to it now, but again, we don't know what the payload is," he said. "I think it's also fair to say that the North Korean missile capabilities are fairly rudimentary. ... But we are watching it with interest and following it very closely."

[Doc Martin]

Originally Posted by Slurpy

No worries. I volunteer to protect our homeland.

You Sir are a good American.

Originally Posted by Slurpy

Just gimme a lounge chair, a cooler, a bottle or 2 of Jack and a boombox ]to crank tunes......

What, no Thai?

Originally Posted by Sluroy

.... and I'll hang out at the end of the Aleutian Islands chain with my 45mm. I'll shoot down anything that flies overhead. I mean have you seen that "missile"? It's looks like something you could mail order from Ronco (and get a free "Salad Shooter", along with it). Christ, the model rocket I made for the 9th grade science fair looks more operational. I'll run my costs thru Halliburton - a few mil oughta cover it. Rest assured, folks.

It was most certainly designed by Ron Popeil, so it should be easy to spot; just look for the red and white “As seen on tv” logo on the tail fin.

I have a Browning Safari Grade FN bolt action in .458 Win. Mag., with a 1-4x scope, you can borrow. It was made for CXP4 (thick-skinned dangerous) Game, so you’ll have no problem with guided Veg-O-Matics, Dial-O-Matics, Pocket Fisherman., and of course the Intercontinental Ballistic Showtime Rotisserie Oven (I.B.S.R.O.).

Sure I know what you’re thinking; “What the hell is a tree hugging, Buddhist, Hippie, Pinko motherfucker like Doc Martin doing with that kind of fire power?”, well it’s quite simple; in the harsh light of day, it's better to be safe than sorry, kids.

[Slurpy]

Originally Posted by Doc Martin

Sure I know what you’re thinking; “What the hell is a tree hugging, Buddhist, Hippie, Pinko motherfucker like Doc Martin doing with that kind of fire power?”, well it’s quite simple; in the harsh light of day, it's better to be safe than sorry, kids.

Right you are, Doc! So to be on the safe side, send me the Browning and the Thai.

[shrugs]

Meanwhile,

[lynn]

"Vice President Dick Cheney called North Korea's missile capabilities "fairly rudimentary" on Thursday despite fears Pyongyang is preparing a test launch of a weapon that could reach the United States."

Considering the facts and Cheney's history of outright lies, we might want to pay more attention to this.

Obviously they don't want a war on the other side of the world. They're asses up to their eyeballs in Iraq with no freaking way out.

I think this home grown militia thing is a great idea.

[Gary Sisco]

I can't wait for the excuses when hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of star wars either isn't even tried for unexplained reasons or, if tried, for the excuses when it inevitably misses.

Hell, even Earl Swagger can't hit a bullet with a bullet.

People also seem to be forgetting that there is still a nearly unlimited (by comparison with the US) infantry north of that DMZ. Korea was not a won war, is another thing too many people have forgotten if they ever knew or even thought about it.

Good luck, y'all.

The world will be a much safer place come January 2009.

[Gary Sisco]

What'd I say? These people are predictable as skunks.

Thu Jun 22, 2006 6:52 PM ET


By Carol Giacomo and Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea is far along in its preparations for testing a long-range ballistic missile but the United States would not necessarily use its missile defense system to shoot it down, U.S. officials said on Thursday.

After a week in which unnamed American officials had stoked alarm about activities at a missile site in eastern North Korea, the U.S. government appeared ready to ease tensions somewhat.

White House national security adviser Stephen Hadley said it remained uncertain if North Korea actually planned to test-fire the Taepodong-2 missile, an act that Washington has warned would be seen as provocative.

"We're watching it very carefully and preparations are very far along. So you could, from a capability standpoint, have a launch. Now what they intend to do ... of course we don't know. What we hope they will do is give it up and not launch," he told reporters traveling with President George W. Bush in Vienna, Austria.

Vice President Dick Cheney said in an interview with CNN that North Korea's missile capabilities were "fairly rudimentary."

"But we are watching it with interest and following it very closely," Cheney said.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declined to say whether he believed a North Korean missile launch to be imminent, and acknowledged, "We don't know their procedures perfectly."

"All the intelligence suggests they have been making preparations for a launch of a missile from the area of Taepodong for some days now," Rumsfeld said.

MISSILE DEFENSE

Rumsfeld said it would depend on the circumstances whether Bush would order the use of the developing U.S. missile defense system to try to shoot down any North Korean missile launch.

"The president would make a decision with respect to the nature of the launch, whether it was threatening to the territory of the United States or not, and the likely threat that it would pose," Rumsfeld told a Pentagon briefing.

The United States has built up a complex of interceptor missiles, advanced radar stations and data relays designed to detect and shoot down an enemy missile, but tests of the system have had mixed results. The multibillion dollar system is based on the concept of using one missile to shoot down another before it can reach its target.

"What we have is a developmental initial system that does not have all the pieces in place but has some modest initial capability. And it will be some months before all of the pieces are in place," Rumsfeld added.

U.S. officials have said they do not know what kind of payload the missile might carry. But two officials told Reuters they would view it as "somewhat less provocative" -- although still undesirable -- if the missile were used to try to put a satellite in orbit.

William Perry, former President Bill Clinton's secretary of defense, and Ashton Carter, an assistant secretary of defense under Clinton, argued in a commentary in The Washington Post that the United States should state its intention to destroy the North Korean missile before it can be fired if the North Koreans persist in their launch preparations.

Peter Rodman, assistant defense secretary for international security affairs, rejected the idea in testimony before the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, saying: "A pre-emptive strike is a little more dramatic than I would expect would happen.

"Our policy is to deal with this in a less drastic way at the present time. We have a missile defense capability and North Korea was very much on our mind when we designed that capability," he added.

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland in Budapest, Paul Eckert in Washington)
(Reuters)

[Gordon B]

Originally Posted by Uli

What bs. The pre-emptive strike theory should be once and for ever forgotten.

So you think that Cheney's team and the one that served Clinton are cut from the same cloth?

I haven't formed an opinion for or against it but found the article fascinating, coming from Clinton's own Sec. of Defense.

It's quite possible that Clinton's wife, if elected, will be as hawkish as Bush.

[Dr Dave]

Originally Posted by Gordon B

It's quite possible that Clinton's wife, if elected, will be as hawkish as Bush.

Oh, let's change the subject, why don't we? Why talk about North Korea when we can talk about Hillary?

[crawjo]

Originally Posted by Gordon B

It's quite possible that Clinton's wife, if elected, will be as hawkish as Bush.

No way.

[Pedantic Wretch]

Originally Posted by Gordon B

So you think that Cheney's team and the one that served Clinton are cut from the same cloth?

I haven't formed an opinion for or against it but found the article fascinating, coming from Clinton's own Sec. of Defense.

The perverse assumption behind many of these American political arguments is that to criticise the Bush administration is to have supported the Clinton administration. Clinton may have approached things with a smilier face, but in many areas he set the groundwork for Bush.

[Uli]

Originally Posted by Gordon B

So you think that Cheney's team and the one that served Clinton are cut from the same cloth?.

No, I don't. But I do think that the ideas expressed in the article are bs. They haven't tried to fool the world to accpet them yet.

[Uli]

Originally Posted by Pedantic Wretch

The perverse assumption behind many of these American political arguments is that to criticise the Bush administration is to have supported the Clinton administration. Clinton may have approached things with a smilier face, but in many areas he set the groundwork for Bush.

He has not done anything as stupid as Bush and his English lackay. Please give us examples of the groundwork. The theory of pre-emptive strike was dug out from the grave by the Bushies.

[crawjo]

Originally Posted by Uli

He has not done anything as stupid as Bush and his English lackay. Please give us examples of the groundwork. The theory of pre-emptive strike was dug out from the grave by the Bushies.

Not directed at me, but...

Clinton made regime change the official policy of the US towards Iraq. He also maintained a low level war against Iraq throughout the 1990s through bombings and so forth. It wasn't like Bush and Co. just picked Iraq out of a hat.

Also, Clinton established the precedent of ignoring the UN through the war in Bosnia.

[Gary Sisco]

Reagan ignored the UN as a way of life.

Gordon -- I would answer yes and have been for years. Their own words answer your question. The partisan lens with which too many Americans view every issue is one of the reasons why the US is in the mess it's in today. Idiotic policies are idiotic policies regardless of party or any other factor.

In any case, short of war -- and again I would remind that NK has an infantry that easily dwarfs the US's -- there's nothing the US can do about missile tests. Star Wars is the most expensive fantasy in all of history. In any case, Rumsfeld himself says above that it would take several months for them to assemble their "system" (a handy feature, right there, for a missile defense system), even assuming it worked, which no one in their right mind does.

"Ok, wait! We have to assemble our system first!"

Shit's mindbogglingly stupid.

But, then, I'm one of the few, in any case, who finds it more than passingly strange that the countries who have the nukes and the ICBMs to deliver them with, seem to think they get to decide who else can have them -- or else. That's bullshit. In less dramatic situations, it's called blackmail.

I also find the military belligerence that too many boomers have discovered in their old age both feeble and hilarious. They find their belligerence when there isn't a chance in hell of they or theirs being required to personally exercise it. Rather, as in keeping with empire throughout history, they pay mercenaries to carry out their belligerence for them. Pathetic, really. As is the partisanship which has replaced thought on most of the most serious questions of our time.

[Uli]

Originally Posted by Face of the Bass

Not directed at me, but...

Clinton made regime change the official policy of the US towards Iraq. He also maintained a low level war against Iraq throughout the 1990s through bombings and so forth. It wasn't like Bush and Co. just picked Iraq out of a hat.

Also, Clinton established the precedent of ignoring the UN through the war in Bosnia.

Regime change ain't necessarily a bad policy. It seems to be definivelyt needed here. It depends on the means how to achieve it.

Bush and co did pick Iraq out of a hat for invading as amply demonstrated by the inaedequcy by the bouquet of reasons given for it.

Bosnia is not compareable. It was done within the confines of Nato with the approval of our allies It is also much closer to a humanitarian mission tto stop the rthnic cleansing. The military action wasover shortly.While there are still Nato troups there we are not fighting there anymore, are we?

[Pedantic Wretch]

Originally Posted by Uli

Bosnia is not compareable. It was done within the confines of Nato with the approval of our allies It is also much closer to a humanitarian mission tto stop the rthnic cleansing. The military action wasover shortly.While there are still Nato troups there we are not fighting there anymore, are we?

Re. the Balkans, John Pilger puts it better than I can:

"The "coming of Hitler" is a rallying cry of war lovers. It was heard before NATO's "moral crusade to save Kosovo" (Blair) in 1999, a model for the invasion of Iraq. In the attack on Serbia, 2 percent of NATO's missiles hit military targets; the rest hit hospitals, schools, factories, churches, and broadcasting studios. Echoing Blair and a clutch of Clinton officials, a massed media chorus declared that "we" had to stop "something approaching genocide" in Kosovo, as Timothy Garton Ash wrote in 2002 in the Guardian. "Echoes of the Holocaust," said the front pages of the Daily Mirror and the Sun. The Observer warned of a "Balkan Final Solution."

The recent death of Slobodan Milosevic took the war lovers and war sellers down memory lane. Curiously, "genocide" and "Holocaust" and the "coming of Hitler" were now missing – for the very good reason that, like the drumbeat leading to the invasion of Iraq and the drumbeat now leading to an attack on Iran, it was all bullshit. Not misinterpretation. Not a mistake. Not blunders. Bullshit.

The "mass graves" in Kosovo would justify it all, they said. When the bombing was over, international forensic teams began subjecting Kosovo to minute examination. The FBI arrived to investigate what was called "the largest crime scene in the FBI's forensic history." Several weeks later, having found not a single mass grave, the FBI and other forensic teams went home.


In 2000, the International War Crimes Tribunal announced that the final count of bodies found in Kosovo's "mass graves" was 2,788. This included Serbs, Roma, and those killed by "our" allies, the Kosovo Liberation Front. It meant that the justification for the attack on Serbia ("225,000 ethnic Albanian men aged between 14 and 59 are missing, presumed dead," the U.S. ambassador-at-large David Scheffer had claimed) was an invention. To my knowledge, only the Wall Street Journal admitted this. A former senior NATO planner, Michael McGwire, wrote that "to describe the bombing as 'humanitarian intervention' [is] really grotesque." In fact, the NATO "crusade" was the final, calculated act of a long war of attrition aimed at wiping out the very idea of Yugoslavia.

For me, one of the more odious characteristics of Blair, and Bush, and Clinton, and their eager or gulled journalistic court, is the enthusiasm of sedentary, effete men (and women) for bloodshed they never see, bits of body they never have to retch over, stacked morgues they will never have to visit, searching for a loved one. Their role is to enforce parallel worlds of unspoken truth and public lies. That Milosevic was a minnow compared with industrial-scale killers such as Bush and Blair belongs to the former."

[Gary Sisco]

<< the enthusiasm of sedentary, effete men (and women) for bloodshed >>

That's a great line, which perfectly describes what to me is a historical crime.

Perfect. People who pay to sweat arguing for people who don't to do their killing and dying for them while they tune in their favorite talk shows at the health club.

It would be a hilarious joke if it were funny.

[Uli]

Originally Posted by Pedantic Wretch

A former senior NATO planner, Michael McGwire, wrote that "to describe the bombing as 'humanitarian intervention' [is] really grotesque." In fact, the NATO "crusade" was the final, calculated act of a long war of attrition aimed at wiping out the very idea of Yugoslavia.

I find it equally grotesque to describe the intervention as a cruseda to wipe out the idea of Yougoslavia. Yougoslavia had long collapsed on it's own after the death of Tito.

Anyway, I am not trying to absolve Clinton. It's very clear to me that any President of any party in the US will have a hard time against the military industrial complex. Johnson alredy recognized that when he did not run for the second time.

However, the Repubs should not be able to get away without carrying the responsiblility for the consequences of this unparalled blunder just because some democrats mite have the same stupid ideas. And I don't mean just the admin. That's true for congress as well.

[crawjo]

Originally Posted by Uli

Regime change ain't necessarily a bad policy. It seems to be definivelyt needed here. It depends on the means how to achieve it.

Bush and co did pick Iraq out of a hat for invading as amply demonstrated by the inaedequcy by the bouquet of reasons given for it.

And, lest we forget, Clinton wrote an article in a British newspaper in the run-up to the Iraq war headlined something to the effect of "Trust Tony." He wasn't exactly an outspoken critic of the war at the beginning.

[Gary Sisco]

People forget so many things. Like Clinton ordering a rain of cruise missiles on Afghanistan and a Sudanese medicine factory, for one. Bombings of Iraq several times per week for his entire eight years, and so forth.

[Uli]

People also forgot how Bush tried to twist Mexico'sarm to vote for the invasion by hinting that he could not guarantee to avoid the beating up of Mexicans in the US by angry patriots.

[Gary Sisco]

When did that get avoided?