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The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Eshoo). Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Colorado [Mr. McInnis], is recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. McINNIS. Madam Speaker, tonight I want to spend a little time with my colleagues and with the rest of you and visit the Korean Peninsula. As you know from the news in the last few days, the Korean Peninsula has been on the headlines, we have heard a great deal about it. But I think it is probably worth our time tonight to spend 30, 40, 45 minutes and just do a basic review of what we are talking about in North Korea, what the difficulty is in Korea, and get a look at the entire picture that involves the Korean Peninsula.
I think probably the first thing we should understand is that America, the United States, has a very special interest in South Korea. We begin that by saying that we have approximately 35,000 American troops stationed in South Korea. In addition to those 35,000 American troops we also have stationed in South Korea about 14,000 private civilians and about 11,000 other members of military families.
So we have a very special interest in South Korea. In addition to the families and the American citizens and United States military personnel we have in South Korea, we also have a security commitment with South Korea that followed the Korean war, which ended in 1953.
To begin this evening, I think we need to take a basic look at the geography so that we have a better understanding of what the Korean Peninsula looks like. Let us start right here so that we have a broad layout of what the geographical area is.
First of all, down here in the left-hand corner you will see the country of Japan, and right here are the Korean Straits. Those are going to be important. I will be talking a little later on about the deployment of the carrier attack force down in this vicinity. Over here you have the Sea of Japan. Up here, of course, you have China. I will be talking at some length about China, the relationship between China and North Korea, the impact of sanctions, whether or not China will agree with sanctions, whether or not sanctions are even going to work. If North Korea launched some type of military attack, what would China's response be? Of course, below China here we have North Korea and down here below North Korea we have South Korea.
Now, dividing the two Koreas is what is commonly referred to as the DMZ. So this evening when I talk about the DMZ, I am talking about this line that you can see on the diagram right here or on the other map which I have right here, the black line which I will point out right underneath of the red. That is the line. That is the neutral zone, so to speak, established after the Korean war by the United Nations agreement to divide the two Koreas.
Now, stop for a minute: About North Korea, North Korea is about one-half the size of the State of Nevada and has a population of about 22 to 23 million people. Pyongyang is the capital of North Korea; that is located right up in this vicinity right here. Now, South Korea has a very interesting geography. The reason we want to talk about this this evening is that because in South Korea you will soon understand the kind of risks, military risks that not only the American troops have but our strong ally and good friend South Korea has.
Now, let us first of all look at Seoul, South Korea. Seoul, South Korea, is the capital of South Korea, and the key part of Seoul is that in Seoul one-half of the country's population, about 10 million people, live in Seoul, South Korea. Seoul, South Korea, also provides one-half of the nation's gross national product, or one-half of the economy for the entire South Korean Peninsula.
So, as you can see, Seoul is a very, very critical area.
Now, Seoul--so you have an idea of the proportion on this map--Seoul is located approximately 35 to 40 miles from the DMZ. In other words, North Korea, which is an adversary to South Korea, is within 35 miles, 35 miles of the nation's capital there in South Korea.
Now, the terrain in North Korea is very similar to the State of Colorado. I am from Colorado, so I will be able to explain what it is like in the event of mountain warfare, what it would be like to engage in air battles in that kind of terrain; very difficult terrain in North Korea, very tough winters.
Now, China has a relation with North Korea. I will just give you a couple of statistics: 75 percent of the oil supplies of North Korea, the imports, come from China; 72 percent of the food that North Korea brings in comes from China; 88 percent of the cooking coal, which is a vital natural resource not found in North Korea, comes from China.
So, as you can see, China has a very strong economic relationship with North Korea.
Now, since World War II, actually since World War II--and right after the Korean War--it is the United States of America that has provided the security umbrella for the entire Asian region. As you know, under the constitution which General MacArthur drafted for the country of Japan, Japan is not allowed to build an offensive military force. And it is really through the event of deterrence, deterrence during the cold war, that we have been able to keep this area fairly peaceful.
But that entire concept, the entire peace that we have had since the Korean war, though it has been interrupted periodically by terrorist actions of North Korea, that entire peace is now being threatened.
Now, the threat over in the Korean Peninsula is not something that has just arisen in the last 3 or 4 days, although of course the news media across the country and across the world is highlighting North Korea. This really began to boil over about a year ago when North Korea announced that they intended to withdraw from the nonproliferation agreement.
Let us talk a little about the history of the North and South Koreas. As you can probably remember from your history books, the division of the Koreas took place after World War II. Kim il-Sung, who is the dictator of North Korea, was actually put into his position by Stalin. Kim il-Sung happens to be the longest-living dictator of any country in the world.
He has a very tight and very strong control over his people in North Korea.
North Korea launched the Korean war, which took place in 1950. It was launched by North Korea under the pretext of military exercises. In other words, North Korea was conducting what they called routine military exercises and in 1950, under the command of Kim il-Sung, who is the same dictator that we are dealing with today, issued the command to attack South Korea. And now the United States, after the Korean war, agreed to provide certain protections for the Korean Peninsula to try to keep peace along the DMZ. In a few minutes, I am going to show you, I am going to give a military comparison between North Korea and South Korea so that you have some kind of perspective of what the circumstances are of any kind of conflict on the Korean Peninsula.
Before I go any further, let me make this point very, very clear to you, and that is that should a conflict occur on the Korean Peninsula, it is not going to be similar to the situation in Iraq where we successfully retook Kuwait. That was an incident in which some human lives were lost, tragically; but the number of lives lost in Iraq will be nothing, nothing in comparison to the kind of casualties that we will take on the Korean Peninsula.
In fact, it is my belief that the casualties that we will take will not only be devastating but will be very immediate. We will, I believe, within days of any kind of military conflict beginning take thousands and thousands of American casualties. We need to be prepared for what could be the biggest challenge to us, I think, considering the other countries that are involved, perhaps, since the commencement of World War II.
Now, is a military conflict going to occur? I do not think it is. I think we have to go to great lengths to avoid military conflict. But we must understand at the very beginning that the consequences, even if the percentage or the odds of an attack by North Korea are very, very small, the long-term and tragic consequences as a result of the conflict being launched are substantial, very substantial. So we need to pay very close attention to what is going on over there and we need to properly protect ourselves.
Now about North Korea: What does Kim il-Sung--what kind of dictator is he? I mentioned to you earlier that he has very, very tight control over his people.
Over the last 10 years and even over the last 14 years, Kim il-Sung has launched terrorist attacks on South Korea. This includes an attack in 1982 or 1983 in an attempt to assassinate the President of South Korea. They set off a bomb in Burma which I believe killed 17 South Korean cabinet members.
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It includes a terrorist attack against North Korea, another separate attack against the President of South Korea where the President was missed by an assassin's bullet, but unfortunately the assassin's bullet found its mark with the President's wife. It includes the launching of 20 commandos to take what is called the Blue House, which is the equivalent of our White House in Washington, the launching of 20 commandos into Seoul, South Korea. They did not get to the Blue House, but to give my colleagues an idea of the dedication of these soldiers, every one of those 20 soldiers fought to their death even after they were surrounded. They no chance whatsoever of making it to the Blue House. Every one of those 20 soldiers fought to the death.
Now we have tried the doctrine of appeasement. What is the doctrine of appeasement? It is a doctrine that says, `You try and get along. You continue to give up what you have to the other side in an effort to get along.'
`A good comparison,' I would say to my colleagues, `is let's say you have a garden, and you have got a neighbor who wants the fruit or vegetables out of your garden. That neighbor has threatened to take the entire garden from you if you don't on a regular basis continue to supply him with vegetables from your garden, and year after year the demand from the neighbor becomes that he wants more and more vegetables out of the garden.'
Madam Speaker, that is exactly what has happened, in my opinion, in Korea. The United States has continued to practice a doctrine of appeasement with North Korea.
Now North Korea, my colleagues need to understand, and we will get a little more into the politics here in a few minutes, but one of the things about North Korea is it is very, very unpredictable. North Korea responds to actions of strength. North Korea behaves itself when it receives an action of strength. Since 1989 the United States has continued to downsize its military presence on the Korean Peninsula. Beginning in 1989, for example, we pulled 6,000 troops out. In 1991, George Bush pulled out the tactical nuclear weapons off the Peninsula. We are continuing to try and negotiate with North Korea through appeasement. I do not think the results are apparent, and I think frankly it has led us to where we are today.
Let us talk a little more about Kim Il Sung up in North Korea. We need to look at this from a perspective of being the most closed society. North Korea is the most closed society in the world. It is the most unpredictable society of any in the world. And it has a control or a grasp of its people more than any other country in the world.
I say to my colleagues, `For example, if you buy a radio in North Korea, the government manufactures the radio so that they tune into only one station. Every person in North Korea is required to carry a picture of Kim Il Sung. The children of the North Koreans are brought up to believe that everything in the world revolves around Kim Il Sung.'
Our intelligence capabilities in North Korea are very, very limited. What do I mean by very, very limited? I think it is fair to say that our ground intelligence, the intelligence we have on the ground in North Korea, to get us a kind of military information or economic information, that so, so we can assess where North Korea is gong, is very limited, if almost nonexistent. Our primary source of information from North Korea is satellite reconnaissance. But satellite information is only good if there is good weather. It is not good if there is bad weather, and it does not work very effectively with tunnels, and I am going to talk about the tunnels here in a few minutes.
So Madam Speaker, we are dealing with a society that is unpredictable, we are dealing with a society that has a very tight control of its people, we are dealing with a society in North Korea where the citizens of North Korea really have had no exposure to the outside world and do not understand the ramifications, I think, of a nuclear confrontation or any kind of confrontation on the Korean Peninsula. We are dealing with a population who has had drilled in their heads since they were able to understand their language, drilled over, and over, and over again, that the Korean Peninsula must be reunited with their generation. What does `with their generation' mean? We do not know.
Let us make some military comparisons so that we have an idea exactly what we are talking about in regard to North Korea and South Korea. First of all, as I mentioned earlier, the United States of America has about 35,000 about 35,000, American troops in
South Korea. The South Koreans have about 600,000. This is give or take a couple thousand, 600,000 troops. So we have got about 630,000 troops, military troops, in South Korea.
In addition to that, Madam Speaker, we have got reinforcements in Japan, in Okinawa, and of course we are able to move carrier fleets or move carrier deployment forces around in the Yellow Sea, in the Sea of Japan.
So, the North Koreans have exactly double that. They have 1,200,000 troops, and what is interesting about these 1,200,000 troops and what is of concern to all of us is that 70 percent of North Korea, 70 percent of their forces, are on the DMZ, right in this area here.
I say to my colleagues, `As you can see from our map over here, the armored forces, the mechanical corps over there and the various military functions in brigades and battalions that we have got near the DMZ; so 70 percent of the North Korean forces are on the DMZ.'
Now, Madam Speaker, the DMZ is about a 3-mile neutral zone. It is about 3 miles wide. Along with the troops that are along there North Korea has a very sophisticated ballistic delivery missile system.
Now my colleagues have often heard in the last week or two about, well, North Korea has nuclear weapons. We do not believe that they have the capability at this point. They have not armed these ballistic missiles that are close to the DMZ or certainly within striking distance of Seoul, South Korea, that they are armed with nuclear missiles. They do not need to be armed with nuclear missiles. They can be armed with conventional missiles because the most likely and the most obvious target to hit in a military conflict is the community which is 35 miles away from their missiles or 40 miles away from their missiles which has one-half of their opponent's population and one-half of the economy of the entire country.
In addition to the ballistic missile systems, in addition to having an advantage of the troops, a two-to-one advantage, North Korea also has substantial means to sustain, to initiate and to sustain, chemical warfare.
Let us go over a few other things that they have in comparison. Now I have mentioned to my colleagues the chemical weapons. They have a large arsenal of tanks. Their tank forces are probably three times the armored car forces, are probably three times what South Korea has. North Korea has a very substantial tank force. The one area that South Korea and the United States on the ground in South Korea clearly outdo the North Koreans on is air superiority, but air superiority from the South, by the South over the North, has to be discounted for a couple of reasons:
No. 1, remember the mountainous conditions and the weather conditions. It is very difficult to carry out air superiority missions with tough weather, with the kind of weather, for example, that we have in the Colorado mountains and the kind of mountain peaks.
The other problem is that the North Koreans have one of the most sophisticated tunnel systems in the world. There are a number of tunnels. We have discovered three tunnels, I believe, that we have been able to dig up, and through hearing devices and so on we have discovered that those tunnels are large enough to move troops at a capacity of 10,000 troops an hour. Those tunnels are deep enough that the conventional weapons, with the estimates that we have and the professional opinions, that the weapons that we would use would not be able to destroy those tunnel systems.
So, air superiority is important. We could bring in additional air enforcement from Japan, and of course, if we have a carrier deployed in the area, we could bring in air enforcement from that. So, on air superiority we clearly have an advantage, but, when it comes to armored service vehicles, surface to surface vehicles, North Korea has twice as many surface to surface missiles as we have in South Korea.
They have got 2,400 multiple rocket launchers. We have got 114 of those multiple rocket launchers. They have got 800 surface to air missiles, 800 surface to air missiles. We have got 250 in South Korea.
I think it is clear, and even the people who disagree as to the policy that we should follow on the Korean Peninsula, even those people, I think, agree that we do not have the proper equipment, that we are not properly prepared in South Korea to handle, for example, a chemical attack, and frankly, if North Korea launched a military conflict and hit their most obvious target, Seoul, they would throw that country into immediate chaos.
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There have been military estimates that say, and it is a recent study that came out about 2 years ago from our own defense papers--and I am not telling you a secret, these are public documents--that said we could lose the peninsula in as short a period as 2 weeks.
One of the difficulties, of course, if a military conflict were launched, would be we would need to bring reinforcements down through this area, and you would have large numbers of people that survived the attack on Seoul heading in this direction, blocking up roads, and so on, and preventing the kind of reinforcement that we would need to bring up through South Korea.
Another interesting thing is that North Korea not only has twice the number of military troops that we have in South Korea down here, but they also have 10,000 special forces. That is one of the largest numbers of special forces of any country in the world.
North Korea also has submarines. They have got what they call two-man submarines. Their purpose would be to drop those subs in areas like this where they could go in to Pusan, for example, and mine the harbor.
So we face a real challenge in regard to reinforcements. Now, if an attack were to take place against South Korea, let me compare that type of military conflict with the kind of military conflict we had when Kuwait was overtaken by Iraq.
When Iraq overran Kuwait, we knew for a period of time that Iraq was moving large numbers of military forces towards Kuwait. We had several weeks warning that a conflict was about to occur. And after Iraq took Kuwait, we had several months to move over our military forces, to set up military hospitals, and to prepare for a major conflict. Several months.
Keep this in mind. If a conflict were to begin or be initiated by North Korea, we believe that we would have about a 24-hour notice. About a 24-hour notice. If North Korea launched a military attack against South Korea, they would throw at South Korea everything they have. And the most devastating things, of course, would be those missiles and the chemical warfare.
If in fact that study is correct that they could push us off the peninsula within a 2-week period of time, it would take us months and months, probably 400,000 American soldiers, to come back and mount a counteroffensive.
We are facing a very dangerous situation on the Korean peninsula.
Let us talk for just a minute or two about the nuclear issue. That seems to be what has spurred on the latest brinkmanship in regard to the issue over there.
First of all, there is the Central Intelligence Agency, and I think now it is the majority opinion in the intelligence community, that North Korea does in fact possess at least one nuclear weapon. Now, a lot of people say, well, you know, is North Korea going to use that nuclear weapon? Are we afraid of them using that weapon?
North Korea would be very, very foolish to use one nuclear weapon or two nuclear weapons. My concern, personally, I am not concerned that North Korea is going to use a nuclear weapon. I am concerned that North Korea is going to sell the nuclear weapon.
Every weapons system that North Korea has developed, they have sold to other countries. Obviously they keep some back for themselves. But the relationships, for example, between North Korea and--are substantial. And I think it is very clear that if North Korea is able to develop these nuclear weapons, or if in fact they have the nuclear weapons, the next step in their program would not be to deploy a nuclear weapon against South Korea, not use a nuclear weapon in South Korea or against the United States. They do not have to. Seoul, South Korea is 35 miles away. Hitting that with a conventional ballistic missile is like dropping a penny in a glass of water when you hold it half an inch above the glass. You do not need a nuclear weapon.
Our danger is and the problem with proliferation is, No. 1, an arms race in this Asian hemisphere, and No. 2, that North Korea would begin selling these nuclear weapons to other countries.
About a year ago, well, some time ago, North Korea agreed to join as one of the parties to what is called the Nonproliferation Agreement. About a year ago North Korea indicated that it was going to pull out of the Nonproliferation Agreement. This came as a result of inspections under this agreement. The countries are entitled to inspect the other countries, peer inspection, peer enforcement for example. And North
Korea hesitated and then went from hesitation to pure refusal to allow these inspectors to come to see whether or not North Korea was developing nuclear power for a military type of weapon.
So for about the last year and a half, North Korea has gone to the brink, said they are going to pull out of the nonproliferation agreement. Then they back off, then they come back up to the brink again, and then they back off. And most recently, about seven weeks, ago, they said all right, we are going to allow the inspectors in.
Our President, this administration, agrees to withdraw Team Spirit. Team Spirit is the exercise by the way, the drill between South Korea and the United States, a military exercise called Team Spirit. Our President agrees to suspend Team Spirit. This is after he told North Korea that they can never obtain a nuclear weapon, on the premise that North Korea will allow these inspections.
North Korea says we will allow you to come in and inspect our nuclear sites, that is, we will allow you to come in and inspect seven of the sites, but we will not allow you to inspect the two suspicious sites.
It is kind of like drug enforcement people come into your house, to a drug dealer's house, let's say, and saying we have got a search warrant for your house. And the drug dealer says that is fine, you can look in five of the rooms, but do not look in those two rooms. Then when you go out, certify to the court I am in full compliance with the search warrant. That is what North Korea has done.
So the inspectors went over there last week, and, as many of you know who have read the paper, the results are that North Korea has refused to cooperate. The inspectors have left and certified they cannot certify that North Korea is in compliance with the nonproliferation agreement. And that brings us up to today.
The IAEA, remember those initials, IAEA is the group that is in charge from the United Nations to enforce the nonproliferation agreement. The IAEA yesterday referred the matter to the United Nations Security Council for further follow-up by the United Nations Security Council.
Well, what is going to be the diplomatic approach? What diplomatically have we done to try and quiet this situation down?
We do not want a conflict on the Korean peninsula. On the other hand, while we think about not wanting a conflict, we must also remember that the only way that you can negotiate with North Korea is through a position of strength. The North Koreans are very bright and very capable people. They sense a sign of weakness very quickly, and they snap on it and they take advantage of it. If you show weakness, if our administration uses a carrot approach, goes up to North Korea and says let's make a deal, tonight is the night to make a deal, if they sense negotiating space, they are going to push you as far as they can push you.
So we have to determine what kind of an approach is going to be necessary to force North Korea into compliance with the nonproliferation agreement and to minimize the threat against South Korea.
We need to talk about deterrence. When we had the cold war with the Soviet Union, we were able to have peace for a number of years through a policy of deterrence. And what is deterrence and what does it require?
Deterrence means I have got a gun, you have got a gun. If I shoot my gun, you will shoot your gun, and we are going to kill each other. It does not make any sense. So you do not fire your gun, I do not fire my gun, but we both know that if the other person does fire their gun, I can respond in a like manner.
So that is deterrence. You stop a bomb with a bomb. You stop a missile with a missile. And in the cold war, it was fairly effective. It kept us at peace, although it was a very tenuous peace. It kept us at peace during all those years with the Soviet Union.
But what is necessary for deterrence to work? First of all, you have got to have communication with the party on the other side. Second of all, the party on the other side has to be rational. Third of all, you have to be very familiar with the citizens, with the economic structure, with the infrastructure, with the military structure of the country you are dealing with.
With North Korea, we do not meet any of those circumstances. We are not very familiar with what goes on in the society, because it is a very closed society. It is the most unpredictable society, unpredictable government under Kim Il-Sung, in the world. And we are not able to communicate, obviously, very effectively with North Korea.
So is deterrence going to work? I do not think deterrence is going to work. And I think it is demonstrated in a very small way when those 20 commandos tried to take the Blue House and were killed. They fought to the very last man, even though they knew they could not accomplish their goal. They refused to surrender. Death was better than surrender.
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This is not a rational thinking country. They are not crazy. They just do not have the kind of philosophy that we do. They are very, very unpredictable. So I do not think deterrence is going to work.
What then are the answers that we should look at while we approach or while we go down a diplomatic type of path? You need to have defense. There is a difference between deterrence and defense. If deterrence does not work, then you need to put in some strong ingredients of defense.
What do we need to do for defense? You have heard about it for several months. This administration, mark my word, look at the papers, look at Time, Newsweek, any of the periodicals, Wall Street Journal that you read, you will see that back in about November the administration said North Korea must never have a nuclear weapon. That now has been softened, and you will see also during that period of time that there was an attempt to deploy Patriot missiles. Then South Korea, who is very concerned, remember, South Korea is the one that has the most to lose. They face a nuclear attack, a possibility of one, although, as I said, I do not think the North Koreans are going to use the nuclear weapon. I think they will sell the nuclear weapon. They face devastation of their economy, devastation of their capital city and just a re-picture of the Korean War. So South Korea does not want to irritate North Korea. On the other hand, they understand the threat is coming to them. Months ago, we were intending to deploy what is called the Patriot missile. The Patriot missile was the missile that got all the publicity in the Iraq war. It is our best known defense against ballistic missiles with conventional warheads.
So the Patriot missile deployment was to take place several months ago. All of a sudden the defense, remember, we have been downsizing. Every time we downsized in South Korea, North Korea took a step up. So we took off our tactical weapons off the Korean Peninsula, and we canceled Team Spirit several years ago.
Now we are trying to bring the Patriot missile back. We have a very basic obligation to our troops, to those 35,000 American soldiers, to those 11,000 military family members, to those 14,000 U.S. citizens. We have a very basic obligation to provide for them a maximum defense force. That includes deployment of the Patriot missiles.
This week, finally, we are going to ship Patriot missiles, 150 to 200 Patriot missiles. They will be leaving Fort Bliss, Texas on a ship. They should be in place in about 30 to 45 days. That will help. It will not stop a ballistic missile attack.
In addition to that, what else should we do to put in proper defense? There are a couple options that I think we need to take. One of the options would be to provide additional radar. We have a good deal of radar along the DMZ and we can observe the actions that are being taken by the North Koreans. The difficulty is if there were a conflict that were to arise, I think it is safe to assume that several of those radar stations would be taken out immediately as a result of the conflict. I think we need to deploy AWAC aircraft, which can provide us with the necessary radar.
In addition to that, I think that we should deploy a carrier attack force, simply as a defensive tool down in the Korean Strait, down in this area here.
Along with these deployments, I think we need to
put in a force of Apache attack helicopters. What is the Apache helicopter? It is an offensive weapon, but it is also a defense weapon. It is our most effective weapon against tanks. Remember, earlier in my discussion I told you that South Korea is greatly outnumbered, probably 5 to 1, by tanks. We have to have some type of defense in South Korea to stop the tank invasion should that take place, and the answer to that is the Apache attack helicopter.
So let us review where we are. We realize that a deterrence will not be effective on the Korean Peninsula, so we have to move into the doctrine of defense. In order to move into the doctrine of defense, we need to deploy several things. One, we need to have a carrier task force off the shores of Korea, simply as a defensive measure. Two, we need to deploy the Patriot missile. That actually is being done right now as we speak. They are being prepared to be shipped out of Fort Bliss, Texas. We need to bring in the Apache attack helicopter.
Furthermore, we need to equip our troops with the best equipment we have got as well as the South Korean troops in preparation for chemical warfare. The United States does not use chemical warfare, but we must be prepared to defend against it. Because you can imagine, you can bet that North Korea will fully use chemical warfare.
Using those kind of things, I think then we can defensively protect ourselves. Then we need to look and say, What options are available to us through a diplomatic approach? It is, after all, our goal to have a diplomatic settlement to the crisis that we now have on the Korean Peninsula.
There are a couple things that we can do. First of all, we need to talk tough with the country of China. China has a good trade relationship with the United States. They enjoy Most Favored Nation status.
I think China will be cooperative with us. I do not think that the policy of sanctions will work. First of all, you have the issue, will China cooperate, will they veto any type of sanctions by the United Nations.
They probably will not veto it or, if they do not veto it, will they abstain from it. And if they abstain from it and the United States invokes sanctions, will China help enforce them.
You realize that the largest border of North Korea is the border they share with China. I went through earlier with you the percentage, the high percentage of food, the high percentage of oil, and the high percentage of heating coal that comes from China to North Korea. If you do not have China's full cooperation with sanctions, sanctions will not work.
I think we have some leverage on the Most Favored Nation status, which we are now negotiating back in the United States Congress. I think that we have some negotiating room there to talk to China, to talk to North Korea.
In addition, what is interesting is out of the country of Japan. There are large numbers of people who live in Japan who are dependents from North Korea. They contribute about a billion dollars in hard cash every year, private contributions out of Japan as contributions to North Korea.
We have an obligation to protect Japan. I think we need to send a message to Japan that says, if you expect us to provide defense for your country, which is exactly what you are going to expect, if any kind of conflict occurs on the Korean Peninsula, you need to stop sending a billion dollars a year up to North Korea.
What about the other options that the United Nations can pursue. I think it is important for our President, and I think this is what the Administration intends to do, to have a strong message sent by the world to North Korea that this type of misbehavior will simply not be tolerated. I said to you that I do not believe sanctions are going to work.
There is another option that has come up. I have had several people say to me, Scott, why do we not make a preemptive strike. Why do we not go up and strike. We know that over here at Yongbyon is where we think some of the nuclear facilities are. We know where the suspect sites are. Why do we not launch a preemptive attack and take those nuclear facilities out.
Any kind of preemptive attack along that line would be foolish. First of all, in order to penetrate the kind of depth that you have in the tunnel systems and so on, you would have to set those nuclear weapons off in the air. The radiation, the winds that blow blow just this direction. And you could very easily float radiation down into South Korea, the very country you are trying to protect, as well as into Japan.
In addition to that, as you know, I mentioned earlier that it is very difficult, with the type of weapons we have, if not impossible, to penetrate the kind of tunnels that they have in North Korea. So if we launched an attack and if we did not use weapons that set off radiation, would be able to penetrate the storage facilities where these nuclear weapons may be.
The answer to that is no. Our chances of success in a unilateral or a preemptive attack are almost zero.
It would be foolish to undertake that.
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Let us step back. Where are we as far as the diplomatic approach? The President has made it clear, but I think he needs to continue to enforce it, and I think he needs to speak to the American people and say, `Any kind of military action initiated by North Korea is the same as an attack initiated against the United States of America.'
The President needs to speak strongly to North Korea. Remember, North Korea understands strength. The President needs to say, and the administration needs to send the message, that we intend to fully defend South Korea. That requires that we send over defensive weapons.
The Patriot missile is not an offensive missile, it is used for defensive purposes. The apache helicopter is used for the defensive purpose of stopping those tanks. The chemical warfare defensive equipment we are sending over there is to defend our troops and South Korean troops against chemical warfare by North Korea.
We need to make it very clear and we need to deploy immediately. We have that obligation to deploy immediately those types of defense weapons as we pursue the diplomatic approach. In addition, remember the steps: We need to make a demand on Japan that the private contributions out of Japan stop, and we need to work with China through the MFN negotiations or any other type of procedure we are able to use to get China's cooperation in trying to contain North Korea.
Let me summarize by saying this. North Korea, in my opinion, is the most precarious international situation that our country faces today. I hope all of the Members, and our constituents throughout this fine country, find it upon themselves to discuss North Korea at their dinner table, to understand what the ramifications are of any kind of conflict in North Korea, and even if we did not have a conflict on the Korean Peninsula, what the ramifications are of nuclear proliferation over is Asia. You need to discuss with your families the commitment we have and the reason we have that commitment.
If we have a nuclear arms race in Asia, we will face problems that will dwarf this problem in the future. It is important not to overestimate and not to overreact to North Korea's words. Two days ago, North Korea said that Seoul will burn in fire. Today they said the deployment of the Patriot missiles is as if it is a declaration of war.
North Korea uses that kind of colorful language. We have to be careful not to let them overreact. We have to be careful we do not overreact, but we must act. We must prepare defensively in case a military conflict were to occur, even though at the same time we are pursuing diplomatic solutions to the problem. Obviously, diplomatic solutions are what we want to work, but if they do not work, we have to be prepared.
Madam Speaker, I intend over the next few weeks to continue to try and update all of the Members on what I believe is going on in the Korean peninsula, what I think is important for us to consider. This is not a problem that is going to go away next week, it is not a problem that is going to go away next year. We are into a long-time commitment to resolve a long-term problem. It is incumbent upon all of us to know as much and to learn as much about Korea as we can, and to understand the circumstances of a military conflict, to understand the necessities of a military defense over there, and to try and figure out as a collective body which is the best diplomatic approach, in combination with the administration, to bring peace, or at least continued negotiations, on the Korean Peninsula.
[Page: H1897]
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