February 4, 2003 5:43 AM

Taking our show on the road

Bombers on alert for trip to N. Korea: U.S. acts to thwart nuke development, nuclear arms effort

When it was first disclosed that North Korea was intent on restarting it's nuclear weapons program, I wondered why we couldn't just take out their reactors. It's not as if there isn't a precedent for this sort of thing- Israel took out an Israeli reactor in 1981. If North Korea is a legitimate threat, we should retain the option of pre-emptive action. Of course, anyone with a shred of humanity would be hoping for diplomacy to work, but dealing with North Korea usually means having a hammer in your back pocket.

WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has put 24 long-range bombers on alert for possible deployment within range of North Korea to deter "opportunism" while Washington is focused on Iraq, and to give President Bush military options if diplomacy fails to halt North Korea's effort to produce nuclear weapons, officials said Monday.

The White House insisted Monday that Bush was still committed to a diplomatic solution to the crisis. Any decision to bolster the considerable U.S. military presence near North Korea was simply what Ari Fleischer, the president's spokesman, called making "certain our contingencies are viable."

Rumsfeld, who Pentagon officials stressed has not yet made a decision to send the bombers, was acting on a request for additional forces from Adm. Thomas B. Fargo, the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific. Fargo has concluded that the North's race to produce a nuclear weapon had significantly worsened the risks on the Korean peninsula.

"This puts them on a short string," said a senior Pentagon official, who explained that the aircraft and crews are now ready to move out within a set number of hours should they receive a deployment order.

The bomber force, along with surveillance planes, would be sent to Guam from bases in the United States. The deployment would bring a potent capability to the region should Bush decide that he cannot allow North Korea to begin reprocessing its spent nuclear fuel into weapons-grade plutonium for as many as a half-dozen weapons.

While Administration officials are insisting that there are no current plans to take out the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, what else could they reasonably do? I'm not sure we'd want to visit a world where an unstable, belligerent jackass like Kim Jong Il has the Bomb. Besides, what else is there to bomb in North Korea?

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on February 4, 2003 5:43 AM.

Thanks for getting your priorities straight was the previous entry in this blog.

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