DATE=7/30/1999
TYPE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP
TITLE=NORTH KOREAN MISSILE FEARS
NUMBER=6-11404
BYLINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
EDITOR=ASSIGNMENTS
TELEPHONE=619-3335
CONTENT=
INTRO: Recently, U-S intelligence satellites and other
sources have suggested North Korea is getting ready to
fire its longest range missile ever, the Taepo Dong
Two.
This is not good news for North Korea's Asian
neighbors, or even the United States, which for the
first time could be within range of either a nuclear
bomb or a chemical or biological weapon. Estimates
are imprecise, but many experts think the new rocket
might be able to reach Hawaii and parts of Alaska with
its payload.
The U-S press is certainly concerned, as we hear in
this sampling of editorial opinion from ___________ in
today's U-S Opinion Roundup.
TEXT: Late last year, North Korea got the world's
attention when it fired a Taepo Dong One missile out
over the Sea of Japan and the Japanese islands
themselves. Pyongyang said it was a successful
attempt to launch the nation's first space satellite,
which was playing music to celebrate the birthday of
leader Kim Jung Il.
To western intelligence agencies, it was a clear
indication that North Korea was in the process of
building mid-range missile with which to intimidate
its more powerful neighbors.
Now, with indications that the successor to that
rocket is ready for its first launch, with a potential
range of anywhere from just slightly more than four-
thousand kilometers to almost six-thousand kilometers,
there is growing concern about North Korean
intentions.
All these scientific developments come against a
backdrop of one of the worst famines to strike an
Asian nation in years, with many reports saying that
hundreds of thousands of North Koreans are eating
grass and tree bark to stay alive.
We begin our sampling with a slightly sarcastic
commentary in the largest Texas daily, The Houston
Chronicle.
VOICE: Oh, the difficulties of leadership. Let's say
you are the beloved dictator of a poor communist
country and you have the choice of either
spending money on powerful new weapons or
feeding your citizens. Which do you do? If you
are Kim Jong-Il, dynastic leader of North Korea,
the answer is easy. You devote your nation's
meager resources to developing nuclear warheads
and long-range rockets. Let your people eat
grass and the bark of trees. . Kim Jong-Il
obviously cares more about the development of
nuclear weapons and advanced missiles than the
needs of his people.
TEXT: Turning to the south, The Florida Times-Union
is equally nervous about the latest news, suggesting:
VOICE: It does not seem rational for North Korea to
be threatening the world's only superpower.
Yugoslavia, after all, was recently bombed
extensively - and it had not, even indirectly,
threatened U-S security or any American
citizens. Nor does it seem to make sense for
Pyongyang to be spending huge sums of money on
military weaponry while its people are starving
to death.
TEXT: We turn to the Op Ed pages of the Dallas Morning
News, where this report from columnist Jim Mann of the
Los Angeles Times paints a grim picture of what it
calls the "Next foreign policy crisis ... looming."
VOICE: Few Americans realize it, but the Clinton
administration already is drifting quietly away
from Kosovo toward its next big foreign policy
crisis: North Korea. You can look for this one
to burst forth within the next few weeks. The
Clinton administration's policy toward North
Korea - - a policy of incanting the totemic word
"engagement,' pretending everything is fine and
stalling off Congress - - is nearing the end of
the line, in not one way but two. First, the
White House has been waiting for weeks for Kim
Jong Il . to respond to a package of proposals
carried to Pyongyang by former Defense Secretary
William Perry. But there has been no reply.
Second, North Korea has been moving forward with
plans to test another new missile, a longer-
range version of the one it sent over Japanese
territory last year. .. The missile test would
be an epochal event. If successful, the test
will represent the first occasion in which a
rogue state will have the capacity to reach the
United States with a missile carrying weapons of
mass destruction. ... The underlying problem is
that the Clinton administration doesn't want to
give Congress the bad news that its policy of
engagement isn't working in the way the White
House had hoped. ...Let's hope the Clinton
administration can come up with a longer-term
solution this time.
TEXT: That was the view of columnist Jim Mann of the
Los Angeles Times. To the Southwest now, and another
nervous view from The Tulsa [Oklahoma] World.
VOICE: The new Taepo Dong-two missile changes the
game entirely. The United States and its allies
must make it clear to North Korea that the
firing will freeze any further relationship with
the Pyongyang government. . This is no time for
cajoling. The United States should make it clear
... the missile test and the threat it carries
will not be tolerated.
TEXT: LASTLY, to a daily in a city with
understandable tension, which may now be in reach of
the North Korean missile. We read this in the
editorial column of Hawaii's Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
VOICE: The Clinton administration hoped to eliminate
the threat of nuclear attack with the 1994
pact, [offering to build two new nuclear
reactors in return for an end to nuclear weapons
development] but the North continues to keep the
accord's viability in doubt. With its customary
rhetorical belligerence, North Korea has
threatened to withdraw from the nuclear
agreement unless the United States begins to
show `good faith' by removing economic
sanctions. The regime maintains that missile
testing is its sovereign right. [U-S Defense
Secretary William] Cohen's mission is to .
[warn] Pyongyang in a credible manner of the
consequences of exercising that right. But with
North Korea you never know.
TEXT: On that ominous note in the Honolulu Star-
Bulletin, we conclude this sampling of U-S editorial
opinion about a possible launch of a new, longer range
North Korean missile.
NEB/ang/gm
30-Jul-1999 17:04 PM LOC (30-Jul-1999 2104 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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