• Off-Base Issues: Prostitution and A-Town - Wolf Pack to combat prostitution -- an object lesson in futility -- and on-base rapes increase; A-town Off-limits -- the makings of a scandal (Updated: January 2004)
  

• Military Affairs (2003) -- USS Carl Vinson arrives in Pusan; Elmendorf F-15s at Osan; Marine FA-18s arrive at Kunsan in May; Low-key buildup; End of May return to normal. (Updated: 3 June 2003)
• Military Affairs (2004) -- Seoul Courts Rule Against USFK Land Use; Vehicle Registration Policy Change; Crime Reports on USFK Soldiers; Continuing ROK-US Prosecutions; Bonus to Soldiers for Extension (Updated: 14 January 2004)
  
  
• Relocation of USFK Bases (2003) -- In March USF announces it will relocate off the DMZ and south of the Han River; Renegotiations of Restructuring of 50-year old alliance; U.S. to invest $11 billion in Korea defense; Korea forced to increase its Defense spending; Enmeshed and entangled, the ROK drags its feet and attempts to shift the financial burden to the USFK; U.S. playing hardball and negotiations hit major snag in September 2003. 15-17 Jan continuation of meetings on relocation and reduction in forces. The first bases Camp Greaves and Giant to be returned in Nov 2004 under the LPP instead of 2011. (Updated: 31 Dec 2003)
  
  
  • Stryler/LAVIII: Our Opinion -- Details on the Stryker SBCT (3d Bde 2d ID) that will be replacing the 2d ID on the DMZ as part of a global repositioning strategy. Included are short sections on current USFK weapons systems that may augment the Stryker units in Korea after all the smoke has cleared. Stryker headed to Iraq in mid-October; US wants future forces to have a "regional" role; Stryker unit in Iraq in 2003 and blooded in Jan 2004. Stryker with its jerry-rigged LPG protection screens undergo the acid test of combat. Strykers success in Iraq for urban warfare role, but still questions about use in mountainous terrain unanswered. Decision to return the Interim Brigade Combat Team to Korea appears to be still up in the air as of 2004. (Updated: Jan 2004)
  
  
  
• Relocation of USFK Bases (2004) -- 15-17 Jan continuation of meetings on relocation and reduction in forces. The first bases Camp Greaves and Giant to be returned in Nov 2004 under the LPP instead of 2011. (Updated: Weekly)
  
  
  • Proposed ROK FY2005 Military Budget -- Is It the Last Straw??? (OPINION) -- ROK Promised Defense Spending increase of 3.2 percent of GDP in 2004, but delivered a 2.8 percent of GDP. ROK Spending has now passed 1997 levels. The US position is that the ROK has the ability to increase its defense spending, but the ROK has not shown the will to do so. ROK "self-reliant" defense is delusional, but the ROK is maintaining the "free-ride" using the US High-tech warfare umbrella. Cursory look at why the ROK "Self-reliant" Defense is delusional. Though stated as reasons for Budget increase, the truth is that the E-X program will be sent out for bids in Nov 2004 and the SAM-X (Patriot) will NEVER be procured as long as President Roh is in office. The ROK is developing weapons programs that offer technology transfer or benefit industrial growth -- not necessarily what is essential to the defense programs. The ROK continues to be a thorn with its refusal to fund the Yongsan move and disputes over land use with the end result possibly being an explosion that destroys the US-ROK Alliance. (Posted: June 2004)
    
  • Dangerous Game the ROK is Playing (OPINION) -- Indepth look at the US Perspective on the evolving US-ROK alliance. Look into the r reasons for the ROK "Stall-and-Conquer" Negotiation strategy. Look at the growing American anti-Korean opinion; USFK and Department of Defense strategy; Head-on collision resulting in reduction in forces and pull-out of troops (Posted: June 2004)
    
    
• Korea Continues to March to Its Own Drummer -- Korea upgrades its military and seeks technology transfer. However, Korea aims to control its own destiny. Korea now has OFFENSIVE missile capability. Its indigenous-designed fighter-trainer is ready for production and the KDX-II "stealth" destroyer has been launched. German-designed submarines are rolling out of shipyards and KM1A1 Korean Main Battle Tank is being produced in Korea. The next-generation fighter has been selected as the F-15K. Whether unrealistic or not, President Roh is seeking "self-reliance" for South Korea's defense by 2010. (Updated: 4 Sept 2003)
  
  
• Military Affairst: North Korean Crisis: -- Equipment changes; Korea-wide Exercises; Force Positioning; Policy changes; North-South military dialogue. (Updated: Monthly)
  
  
  • Food for Thought: The Military Option in North Korea: -- Short comparison of a views on military parity: Korean versus U.S. view. (Posted: 26 April 2003)
    
  • Food for Thought: The Mythical North Korean Threat: -- An article building a case for U.S. withdrawal from Korea. (Posted: 20 June 2003)
  
  
  
• Spies, Espionage & Infiltrators: -- Personal Opinion on the Spy Situation in Kunsan. Covers the spy organizations and the abuses by Presidents from Syngman Rhee to Roh Moo-hyun. Covers cases of captured infiltrators and deep-cover spies discovered in recent years to back up conclusions. (Sources footnoted) Covers history of communism in Cholla Provinces; list of coastal infiltration with methods of infiltration and vehicles used. (Posted: 24 May 2004)
  

• Reviews of Books on Kunsan AB (Updated: 3 June 2003)
  
• Reference Sources/Links: -- Links to Pro-USFK/Anti-US sites and online Korean newspaper links. General, Military and USFK links. (Updated: 8 August 2003)

• Background
  
  • Subtopics -- Pro-American Demonstrations or really Anti-Sunshine Policy Demonstration? -- Anti-American Protests Waning? NO!!! -- Split in NGO Group Strategies and Shift to Pacifism -- America Responds -- Backlash of Anti-American Demonstrations -- Anti-American and the Generation Gap -- NGO Tactic to Boycott American Goods Backfires -- NGO-Initiated Polls Increasing and USFK Poll in response -- Roh wants to revise SOFA, but U.S. and MOJ Sees No Need -- Danger of Getting What they Want -- Considering the Improbable: What if the U.S. Leaves? -- OUR OPINION (Updated: 3 June 2003)
• Jan-Mar 2003
  
  • Iraq War & Korean Perspective of Iraq War (Mar-Apr 2003) -- Iraq and Korea DAILY events with emphasis on anti-War -- but in reality a continuation of the anti-American protests of 2002. President Roh tells nation that he is forced to send non-combatant troops to Iraq in order to protect the nation -- i.e., U.S. blackmailed him. Roh then rewrites the text of his speech for English publications. Coverage is a day-by-day chronology of events in Baghdad and Seoul. (Updated: 16 April 2003)
    
• Apr-Jun 2003
  
• Jul-Sep 2003
  
• Oct-Dec 2003
  
• Jan-Mar 2004
  
• Apr-Jun 2004
  

• North Korean Crisis Background and Reference Materials -- Background on events leading up to Nuclear Crisis; Materials from Selected Sources on Nuclear Crisis; OUR OPINION (Updated: 8 August 2003)
• For Your Information: North Korea-US Meeting: -- Special Report on Upcoming North Korea-China-US meeting and U.S./North Korean options with our comments. (Posted: 8 August 2003)

• Reformist Policy:
• Lack of Coordination within Government:
• Alienates Career Bureaucrats:
• Continuing Education Problems over NEIS:
• Attacks on the "Gangster" Press:
• Environmental Policy and Saemangeum Project:
• Nuclear Waste Dump Protest:
• Farmers Problems, Opening of the Rice Market and Surplus Rice:
• Chaebol and Business Reforms:
• Korea Under Attack for Dumping and Govt Subsidies:
• Korean Outlook Dims as Companies Leave Korea:
• Privatization Plans Put on a Hold:
• Financial Reform Turns into a Quagmire:
• Conciliatory Position to Union Strikes:
• 40-hour Work Week:
• Political Scandals:
• Political Harassment from GNP:
• Split-up of MDP:
• Autonomy: An Old Answer to New Problems -- Pass the Buck!:
• NIS and National Security Law:
• Exiled North Korean supporter, Song Du-yul, Returns:
• Peace and Prosperity Policy:
• Trusted U.S. Supporter during Iraq War?:
• NGO groups anti-Americanism and Opposition demonstrations:
• Roh Questions Removal of USFK:
• ROK-US Summit (May 14) Impacts:
• Can a Leopard Change its Spots?:
• Resurgence of Anti-Americanism:
• Resurgence of Anti-Japanese Protests:
• Radical Students Protest Roh:
• Roh's Falling Popularity starts in Third Month in Office:
• End of 2003: Roh's Leadership Vacuum:
• Roh Impeached: March 2004

JANUARY 2003:

U.S. withholds food aid for the North Koreans

Steven R. Weisman/NYT

The New York Times

WASHINGTON For months, President George W. Bush has pledged not to use food as a weapon against North Korea. But as the confrontation deepens over the country's nuclear weapons program, the United States has continued to withhold approval of grain shipments sought by humanitarian groups to avert starvation on the Korean Peninsula.

.The World Food Program, an arm of the United Nations, says that food aid suspensions by the United States and Japan, and severe cutbacks by South Korea, have meant that for the first time in many years, it will miss its food-distribution targets in North Korea this winter "by a wide margin."

."We're very concerned about it," a World Food Program official said. "We understand that there are political considerations. But this is a population that is suffering, with women and children the most vulnerable."

.The Bush administration says it has been withholding food, not to pressure North Korea, but because of lapses in the mechanisms monitoring where it gets distributed.

."Our intention is to go forward, but we do need to solve these monitoring problems first," an administration official said. He added that food could not be distributed until Congress approves the State Department budget for it this year.

.But World Food Program officials say that they have "no hard evidence" that food intended for starving civilians has been diverted for other uses, such as the military.

."We have relatively good confidence that the food is reaching the people who need it," he said.

.Whatever the reasons for it, the food crisis has thrust itself into the middle of urgent meetings by the United States and its regional allies - China, Japan, Russia and South Korea - on how to handle North Korea's decision to reactivate its nuclear weapons program.

.Senior U.S., Japanese and South Korean envoys are to meet in Washington on Monday to decide the next steps, including whether, and by what means, to reach out diplomatically to North Korea to head off its nuclear weapons buildup - and whether to tighten or ease the economic pressures on it.

.On the food issue, diplomats say there will be pressure on the United States to avoid a new round of pressure on President Kim Jong Il, who has nonetheless not voiced any views on the matter. Although South Korea has cut back its food shipments, officials in Seoul criticized the Bush administration for forcing an early cutoff of fuel oil shipments to North Korea last year, even though the shipments had been arranged as part of the 1994 agreement, now broken, under which North Korea agreed not to make nuclear weapons.

.In a separate action, the International Atomic Energy Agency is to meet Monday to discuss what to do about North Korea's dismantling of the inspections equipment at its nuclear reactor at Yongbyan, where weapons-grade plutonium is manufactured and possibly used for at least two nuclear weapons.

.Agency inspectors were expelled from North Korea at the end of 2002, raising anxiety throughout the West and complicating U.S. attempts to mobilize a worldwide coalition against Iraq, whose nuclear weapons program is considered far less advanced.

.The three-way negotiations in Washington have been roiled, in part, by the fact that South Korea is undergoing a political transition, with President Kim Dae Jung preparing to yield power next month to his successor, Roh Moo Hyun.

.Both are strong advocates of maintaining diplomatic and economic ties with North Korea. In the last few days, Roh's advisers have begun floating ideas about how to break the impasse that has arisen over the U.S. policy of not negotiating with North Korea until it disavows its nuclear program, and Roh's call for such negotiations. One of Roh's transition advisers said last week that the incoming president wants the United States to go along with a proposal by North Korea that the United States commit itself to a nonaggression pact, as part of a deal in which Pyongyang would back away from its nuclear program.

.In Washington, Bush administration officials have not rejected this idea out of hand. The president, they noted, has repeatedly declared that the United States had no intention of attacking North Korea. Therefore, they said, some agreement of nonaggression might well be part of an eventual deal on weapons.

The following is from The Washington Times on 2 Jan:

U.S. to maintain N. Korean food aid

From combined dispatches

The Bush administration plans to continue humanitarian food shipments to North Korea in the new year, U.S. officials said, despite Pyongyang's continued belligerence in pursuit of its nuclear ambitions.

"We expect to continue providing the same level of aid to the [United Nations] World Food Program in Korea as we have in the past," a senior administration official said in reply to questions from Reuters news agency. "We don't use food as a political weapon."

But North Korea appealed yesterday to widespread anti-American sentiment among South Koreans by seeking support in its confrontation with the United States over nuclear weapons.

"It can be said that there exists on the Korean peninsula at present only confrontation between the Koreans in the North and the South and the United States," the communist state said in its New Year's message.

It is North Korea's long-standing strategy to drive a wedge between Seoul and its chief ally, Washington.

A senior South Korean diplomat arrived in Beijing yesterday to seek China's support in persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions.

Lee Tae-sik, South Korea's deputy foreign minister, will meet Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing today, South Korean officials said.

South Korea also plans to send a vice foreign minister to Moscow later this week. China and Russia maintain friendly ties with the communist North, and they have urged a peaceful solution to the rising tension.

On the issue of food aid, the United States has argued in the past that such aid should be isolated from geo-strategic considerations — an idea summed up by former President Ronald Reagan's dictum that "a hungry child knows no politics."

But the timing of a U.S. food-aid announcement was up in the air while Washington pressed to reverse the North's recent steps toward restarting a nuclear program frozen in a 1994 nonproliferation deal with the United States.

The aid would come at a time when the reclusive communist state — long considered by Washington as one of its most dangerous enemies — is perhaps more vulnerable to outside pressure than ever.

In the mid- to late 1990s, as many as 2.5 million North Koreans, or about 10 percent of the population, died in a famine. North Korea, which can not feed its 22 million people without outside help, risked losing key sources of aid in the recent weeks by moving to restart its mothballed nuclear program, expelling U.N. inspectors and threatening to pull out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

One of the two nuclear inspectors expelled by North Korea, Missak Demirdjian, arrived yesterday in Vienna, Austria, on a flight from Beijing. He fended off all questions, saying only: "We, of course, hope to go back as soon as possible." The United States has already cut off monthly fuel oil shipments it had been making since 1994, worth about $75 million annually.

In a Dec. 3 appeal, the U.N. agency urged donor nations to help feed 6.4 million "particularly vulnerable" North Koreans among a population of 22 million, as part of a $201 million emergency operation this year.

The main beneficiaries would be children from ages 6 months to 10 years, pregnant and nursing women, the elderly, and those particularly affected by natural disasters and the country's dire economic straits, said Rick Corsino, the group's country director for North Korea.

The senior official who responded to Reuters' queries said the administration would not know how much it will contribute until the fiscal 2004 budget was completed. It is due to be sent to Congress next month.

Rep. Mark Steven Kirk, an Illinois Republican who toured North Korea in the 1990s as a House International Relations Committee staffer, said North Korea's behavior had already cost it food aid from Japan and Europe.

"No matter how incompetent the regime may be, it's critical that we step in to save the next generation," Mr. Kirk said, adding that the administration was loath to make a food-aid announcement in the same week that Pyongyang was expelling the last two U.N. nuclear monitors.

North Korea's emphasis on "cooperation" with South Korea comes at a time when Seoul is criticizing a U.S. push to isolate North Korea in the standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear program.

North Korea's overtures are also driven by economic needs, analysts said.

Under President Kim Dae-jung's "sunshine policy" of engaging the North, South Korea has begun a series of unfinished inter-Korean projects, including a cross-border rail link, and tourist and industrial parks, that would bring the impoverished North badly needed cash.

Although North Korea's recent decision to reactivate its nuclear program angered much of the world, it provoked little reaction among most South Koreans.

Both Mr. Kim and President-elect Roh Moo-hyun, who will take office in late February, insist that North Korea not develop nuclear weapons.

But they have vowed to press on with an engagement policy toward the North and have expressed concern that Washington might impose heavy economic pressure on Pyongyang.

Nearly 2 million troops are massed on both sides of the Korean border. About 37,000 U.S. soldiers back the South Koreans. Anti-U.S. sentiment is evident on the streets of Seoul. Thousands of South Koreans have joined street rallies to protest the deaths of two teenage girls accidentally killed in June by a U.S. military vehicle.

The following is an article on Korea.com in 10 Jan:

Famished and ill, children suffer most in North's food crisis

The U.S. government repeated that it would not cut off or reduce food aid to North Korea for "political reasons," as tension between Washington and Pyeongyang grew over the North's nuclear program. The announcement was largely taken as an attempt to separate the nuclear issue from humanitarian aid to the North, out of consideration for the children, who are often hit the hardest by food shortages there.

Reports by international aid agencies forecast continued food shortages in the North, although not approaching the levels of the worst years, from 1995 to 1997. The executive director of the World Food Program, James Morris, said after his visit to the North in November that about 4 million North Korean children could die of starvation this year. The organization's spokesman, Gerald Bourke, reported that nearly all of the 25 students in a third-grade class at a primary school in Gimchaek, North Hamgyeong province, were eating mostly maize. Only three of them reported having eaten meat in the previous month, and the rest had eaten an egg and some vegetables on just one occasion during the month.

The World Food Program tried to address the situation by asking Tuesday for urgent donations. It asked for 80,000 tons of food for distribution to the areas suffering the most. The European Union said Wednesday that it would pay for 39,000 tons of food to be distributed primarily to children and pregnant women.

An official report by Pyeongyang in May 2000 said 45 percent of children 5 years old or younger suffered from chronic malnutrition. A survey by the World Food Program, the United Nations Children's Fund and the European Union conducted in September and October 1998 painted a similar picture throughout North Korea. Nearly two-thirds of the country's children aged between 6 months and 7 years old were reported to be suffering chronic malnutrition at the time. Sixteen percent of them suffered from dangerous degrees of malnutrition.

One in three orphans, aged 12 to 24 months, suffered from acute malnutrition.

In June, North Korea had a bumper crop of row vegetables, wheat and barley, and raised daily food rations from 250 grams to 350 grams -- still far short of the World Health Organization's recommended 700 grams.

The situation has reportedly deteriorated following economic reform measures adopted in July. The changes practically ended rationing, making food that much harder to come by. The secretary-general of the Korean Welfare Foundation, Kim Hyoung-suk, said inflation in the North has skyrocketed since then, worsening the pain and suffering for children. Hundreds of thousands of people, including many children, are believed to be wandering the forests and coasts looking for food, Mr. Bourke of the World Food Program said.

Two-thirds of the North's one million children under age 5 are believed to be infected with respiratory diseases and 20 percent with intestinal ailments, said Medical Aid for Children of DPRK, a private organization here. These types of diseases have increased sharply since 1995 and their mortality rate is believed to be nearly 80 percent, according to at least one study.

Only about a third of North Korean infants younger than a year old received a full inoculation regime last year, the group said. Very few children brought into hospitals are given intravenous drips because little medicine is available.

Lee Dong-hyun jackkim@joongang.co.kr - Internet Media Company Joins.com, 2003 Joins.com

North Holds Massive Rally to Show Resolve: On 12 Jan, North Korea held a public rally of one million people at an anti-American rally. The central news agency also reported on Saturday, one million people, almost half of the population of Pyongyang appeared at an anti-American rally. The people were reported to be supporting the government statement on its nuclear program, and that they "were burning with hate for the one hundred year's enemy, the US, and will block the US maneuvering of nuclear war, together." It stated that it felt a declaration of war by the U.S. was imminent.

The U.S. condemned North Korea for dropping out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and backed sending the matter to the UN Security Council. In response stated that any UN sanctions would be considered an "act of war."

U.S. and North Korea Stance As the New Year opened, President George W. Bush was facing questions as to why Iraq was more important than North Korea. He stated that the current standoff with North Korea was sharply different from the confrontation with Iraq. Bush told reporters in Crawford, Texas the case with Pyongyang is not a military showdown, rather a diplomatic one. However, continuing disclosures about the North's nuclear program made administration officials fearful they will undermine Bush's plan to build an international coalition against Iraq.

President Bush reaffirmed that he was confident a peaceful conclusion can be reached in the nuclear standoff on the Korean Peninsula. He also criticized the North Korean government for starving its people. Bush blamed North Korea for the starvation of its own people. He stated he had no affection for Kim Jong-Il, someone who starves his own citizens.

On 3 Jan North Korea again urged the United States to have unconditional dialogue with Pyongyang to discuss issues such as the scrapping of the 1994 Geneva Agreed Framework. This is the same as it was before and the U.S. response was the same as before.

On 6 Jan, the U.S. agreed to unconditional talks with North Korea on how it will meet international obligations over its nuclear weapons development. The offer was included in a joint statement with South Korea and Japan after two days of a Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group meeting in Washington.

The US side said, "North Korea's relations with the entire international community hinge on its taking prompt and verifiable action to completely dismantle its nuclear weapons program and come into full compliance with its international commitments. That's what we mean by North Korea meeting its obligations. We're willing to talk with North Korea about how they can do that." However, the US did add that it would NOT give additional compensation to North Korea if it stopped its nuclear weapons program. It referred to the pledge North Korea made in 1994 to freeze its nuclear ambitions in exchange for energy supplies. Analysts viewed this as a softening in Washington's stance of rejecting any talks with Pyeongyang.

On 11 Jan North Korea threatened to abandon a moratorium on ballistic missile tests, further escalating a confrontation with its neighbors and the US one day after withdrawing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). North Korea's ambassador to China, Choe Jin Su, issued the threat in which he defended his impoverished nation's right to possess "devices to save us from a nuclear attack" and accused the United States of adopting "hostile policies." "The development, test, deployment and export of our missiles entirely belong to our sovereignty," he said. "Because all agreements have been nullified by the United States' side, we believe we cannot go along with the self-imposed missile moratorium any longer."

On 14 Jan Bush offered food and energy aid to North Korea as an incentive to dismantle its nuclear weapons program. The promise was a u-turn in the Bush administration's hardline approach which had ruled out any negotiations to reward Pyongyang's "nuclear blackmail" and ended three months of stonewalling. The reversal of US policy came when Bush said that Washington was prepared to hold "technical" talks with junior North Korean officials as a prelude to more serious negotiations.

On 15 Jan North Korea flatly rejected an offer by President Bush to hold talks and provide possible economic support if the North agreed to scrap its nuclear plans. In response, Japan and the US weighed the possibility of a new pact with Pyongyang, similar to the 1994 Geneva Agreed Framework solely based on the condition that North Korea surrenders its nuclear ambitions.

On 21 Jan, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il was interested in a "multilateral security guarantee" under which several countries guarantee the North's security, in return for giving up its nuclear ambitions.

On 23 Jan U.S. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton reiterated Washington's policy towards North Korea. When asked as for whether Washington will provide a written guarantee, or a non-aggression pact for the Stalinist state, the under secretary said the US has, "No plans to invade North Korea," and "that is the strongest assurance the United States is capable of giving." "But we will not negotiate with them in a fashion that rewards bad behavior or amounts to submission to blackmail. That has been the policy and that remains the policy."

U.S. Backdoor Diplomacy: Other avenues of diplomacy was being explored. On 26 Jan Bill Richardson, Democratic Governor of New Mexico -- and a former UN Ambassador -- was the first US contact point with North Korean diplomats since the rise of the nuclear crisis. The U.S. allowed the envoys who are normally restricted to New York City to meet with Richardson. Negotiating at his ranch in New Mexico, Richardson stated Washington needs to come forward and push for direct talks with Pyongyang. He also believed the Bush administration should make efforts as soon as possible to have direct talks with the North.

North Korean envoys who met with Gov. Richardson in Santa Fe complained that they have tried for weeks to arrange talks with the Bush administration but have been constantly rebuffed. North Korea's deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Han Song Ryol, asked Richardson to set up meetings with the administration to discuss Pyongyang's nuclear program, these sources said. Han said that no member of the U.S. mission to the United Nations will talk with any member of the North Korean delegation, although the two countries' U.N. ambassadors met regularly during the Clinton administration. Richardson passed along the request for dialogue to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.

A retired U.S. Senator was sent to North Korea on a fact-finding mission on behalf of the U.S. senate. His responses were guarded optimism stating that the North truly desired to open a dialogue. Again this contacts was not an official mission.

Another Democrat, former President Bill Clinton said it was urgent for Washington to reach a deal with Pyongyang before poverty drives the impoverished nation to sell its nuclear weapons. During an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland Clinton said North Korea's bombs and missiles are its only cash crop, because the country has greater capacity to produce atomic weapons than Iraq, while less capacity to feed its people. He described North Korea's behavior as a form of attention-seeking and stressed the need for a comprehensive agreement sooner than later.

Former President Jimmy Carter again offered his services to mediate the dispute, but was politely disregarded.

According to CNN News on 6 Mar, "U.S. and North Korean representatives met secretly and informally last month to discuss Pyongyang's nuclear program, a Japanese newspaper has reported. But U.S. officials in Washington have played down the report, saying the Americans involved were private citizens and did not represent the Bush administration, Reuters news agency says. The talks -- the first meeting between representatives of both nations since January -- centered on how North Korea could verify abandoning its nuclear program, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper report. The meetings, held at the North Korean embassy in Berlin on February 20 and 21, failed to reach agreement on how a dismantlement of Pyongyang's uranium enrichment program could be proved, Asahi reported. Pyongyang proposed U.S. inspectors visit its facilities, but the Asahi report said the U.S. representatives wanted U.N. nuclear inspectors to verify any shutting down. Washington has thus far ruled out direct bilateral talks with North Korea, a demand Pyongyang says is the only way to resolve the four-month nuclear dispute. The U.S. says it wants multilateral talks and will not be blackmailed into face-to-face discussions."

Roh: South Korea to Act as Mediator: On 14 Jan, President-elect Roh stated that South Korea would act as a mediator to US-North Korea relations as it was an involved party in the crisis. Assistant Deputy Secretary of State James Kelly stated that it was "inappropriate" for the South to do so. However, Roh's transition team set about a whirlwind tour to meet with all the surrounding neighbors.

Roh continued his efforts to act as a mediator to the nuclear crisis. He urged North Korea to consider scrapping its nuclear program for energy. Roh urged the U.S. to open a dialogue with the North. In an interview with the New York Times, Roh pledged to continue dialogue with North Korea under any circumstances, and insisted on a peaceful resolution to the four-month old nuclear crisis. Roh said he believes North Korea will abandon its nuclear aspirations, once security and aid are guaranteed to the North.

On 23 Jan it was announced that a Presidential envoy, Special Adviser on Diplomacy, Security and Unification Lim Dong-won was scheduled to visit the North Korean capital Pyongyang. The visit was agreed on with North Korea and Lim was to discuss pending issues such as the North's nuclear program and inter-Korean projects. Hopes were built up in the press for the success of this envoy.

On 27 Jan Presidential envoy Lim Dong-won left for Pyongyang on a three-day mission. Again the North rebuffed the South on its attempts to be a intermediary. Delivering a personal letter from President Kim, he said "I will explain in detail the South Korean people and international community's interest and concern regarding the nuclear issue and will seek a solution." However, this time Lim was stood up by Kim Jong-Il who was "busy" elsewhere. At this point, the world media began to wonder if the Roh administration diplomacy was being run by amateurs.

There was a dramatic breach in the "unified policy" on North Korea. The following article in the New York Times on 23 Jan covers the breach where the U.S. laid out the policy and Seoul followed blindly. This is no longer the case.

Seoul Looks to New Alliances

By HOWARD W. FRENCH

SEOUL, South Korea, Jan. 23 — For five decades, Washington's leadership in its alliance with South Korea went unchallenged. With 37,000 American troops in South Korea, many of them along the world's most heavily armed frontier, the United States called the tune and this country followed along.

With startling speed over the last several weeks, that pattern has dissolved. The breach between Washington and Seoul could be seen on Wednesday, when John R. Bolton, the under secretary of state for arms control and international security, forcefully announced that he had forged a consensus that the issue of North Korea's nuclear weapons programs should be referred to the United Nations Security Council. Within hours, South Korean officials said just as forcefully that they had agreed on no such thing.

The talk in Seoul in recent weeks has been of emerging from the shadow of the United States and of refocusing South Korea's foreign relations within its own region. Moreover, in violation of the ultimate taboo, there have been increasingly strong hints of interest here in a substantial reduction of the American military presence.

In one recent speech, President-elect Roh Moo Hyun, whose election in December has driven much of the talk of change, said: "Although we don't know if it might take 10, 20 or 30 years, someone has to consider an independent defense. Senior military officials have to prepare a plan for a special emergency situation when the U.S. Army moves away."

Washington appears to have been taken aback by the changing language in Seoul, just as it was by the weeks of anti-American demonstrations that swept this city during the election campaign and its aftermath. Looking back, Western diplomats and Korea analysts said that plenty of warning signs pointed to serious problems in the relationship, but that the United States, fixated on Iraq and inflexible in its approach to North Korea, paid them little heed.

Now, American experts in East Asian affairs say, pique over South Korea's sudden assertiveness and umbrage over the long season of protests against the American troop presence have caused people in the Pentagon, and elsewhere in Washington, to contemplate a smaller force here.

"There are major reports under preparation in the Pentagon about how to transform our presence," said Kurt M. Campbell, a former deputy assistant defense secretary who is an East Asia specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "Generally speaking, it is hard for our senior military people to believe that we are not loved. We are doing God's work, and if people don't appreciate it there is something wrong with them."

Some regional diplomatic analysts go so far as to compare the shifting relationship between the two countries to a runaway train, and to criticize each side for losing sight of its long-term interests, failing to hear its ally and falling prey to emotionally seductive ideas without thinking through their potentially monumental consequences. These analysts say the Bush administration is conspicuously lacking in high-level Korea experts, while Mr. Roh has never been to the United States.

On the South Korean side, a weariness with being the seemingly always put-upon junior partner in a three-way alliance that includes Japan has driven plans for closer relations with China, a country with which Koreans have deep cultural links.

While no one here speaks of cutting economic ties with the United States, the vision Mr. Roh brings to office is one of a regional economic community, or union, much as in Europe. Significantly, it would include North Korea, which Washington has been working hard to isolate because of its weapons programs. Inevitably, China would be the community's superpower.

In immediate diplomatic terms, whatever Washington has in mind, Mr. Roh seems determined to accelerate the engagement strategy toward North Korea that was begun under the current president, Kim Dae Jung, and has been called the sunshine policy. Already, Mr. Roh plans to invite the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, for a second North-South summit meeting, and to seek ways to establish military confidence-building by scaling back the armed forces and examining each other's drills.

"If North Korea responds to the outside world and abandons its nuclear program, South Korea will reward them beyond their own expectations," a senior adviser to the president-elect said this week.

Scott Snyder, Korea representative of the Asia Foundation, a San Francisco-based research group that is partly financed by the United States government, said there had been a "paradigm shift" that revolved around two issues: "a changed South Korean view of the North, since sunshine policy, and a changing view of China."

If South Koreans are feeling more self-confident, many experts warn against allowing giddiness to lead the country down the wrong path.

"This is a real misreading of history," said Victor D. Cha, a Korea specialist at Georgetown University in Washington. "U.S.-Japan-Korea was a pretty winning formula for South Korea's development. Koreans are feeling assertive and are not in a mood to acknowledge this at the moment, but to place their bets on China, whose domestic institutions are not exactly transparent or stable, is wishful thinking."

If anything, experts in Northeast Asian affairs are more scathing in their reaction to the calls in the United States to simply reduce the number of American troops here or withdraw them altogether.

Less than four years ago, William S. Cohen, then the defense secretary, created a stir here when he proclaimed in a speech that the United States would like to retain a military presence in Korea, even after the North and South eventually unified. Mr. Cohen's remarks offended some Koreans at the time, but regional experts say they grew out of a sober assessment of the United States' interests in this part of the world.

In terms of military doctrine, the 37,000 American troops here serve as a tripwire, meant to dissuade a North Korean attack more than to fight a war. Their presence radiates symbolic value, however, throughout the region, especially toward a fast-rising China.

"This administration came into office warning about the rise of China, and we are stumbling into a situation where American interests throughout East Asia risk being compromised," said Joel Wit, a former State Department official who helped negotiate the 1994 arms control agreement with North Korea. "If America is seen as playing an active, positive role, it will be possible to contain these trends. That means dealing with the North Koreans in a way that tells the South Koreans that we have their interests at heart, too," Mr. Wit said. "In the absence of that, there will be more of a drift away from the United States."

Ministerial Talks Continue Between the 24-27 Jan, cabinet-level talks were held in Seoul between the two nations on Red Cross reunification of families, ministerial talks on the nuclear crisis and the project to connect the roads and railroads across the DMZ. Roh expressed his willingness to meet with the North Korean delegation. Unfortunately, the end result of the talks was that the South was rebuffed -- politely -- by the North. Their line had not changed. They would only talk with the U.S. The Korean government ended up with egg on their faces as they promised more to the Korean people than what was delivered. The Ministry of Finance and Economy (MOFE) stated later that South and North Korea failed to agree on definitive timetables to push forward key economic cooperation projects. (See Ministerial Talks for more information.)

IAEA Forward Nuclear Issue to UNSC: On 20 Jan the Choson Shinbo, the Japanese pro-North Korea organization Chosensoren's newspaper reported that as well as reactivating its 5MW Yongbyun nuclear reactor to counter oil shipment suspension, Pyongyang also started preparations to restart construction for its 50MW and 200MW nuclear reactors.

On 22 Jan the U.S. again requested the nuclear issue be forwarded to the UNSC. A day later North Korea stated that the two Koreas should cooperate in dealing with the United States with regard to Pyongyang's nuclear issue in "inter-Korean cooperation to serve peace and security."

On 23 Jan it was reported that U.S. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton was keen on bringing the North Korean nuclear issue to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Bolton said the matter is "appropriate" for the council because Pyongyang's nuclear program is clearly a threat to international security. Beijing said on Monday it will not object to such a referral. Once the matter is referred, Bolton said the UNSC will have many options including political and economic sanctions to deal with the already isolationist state.

On 26 Jan the UN indicated that the South Korean government has asked the IAEA to postpone the 3 Feb meeting to apply for sanctions so that Seoul could have ample time to resolve the nuclear standoff through more diplomatic channels. In the meantime, the United States Undersecretary of State John Bolton said the Bush Administration will not rush to impose sanctions against Pyongyang.



Key member nations of the IAEA met to discuss the North Korean situation. It was expected that there would be action to forward for UNC action on sanctions as the the failure of special envoy Lim indicated that the North was holding out for talks with the U.S. only.

On 29 Jan President Bush again repeated that the U.S. would not be blackmailed. In his State of the Union address, President Bush said the biggest threat the United States faced were outlaw regimes seeking to possess nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. On North Korea Bush commented that it was using the fear of nuclear weapons to gain concessions, but the US and the world would not be blackmailed. He added Washington would seek a peaceful solution to this crisis in cooperation with South Korea, Japan, China and Russia.

On 31 Jan IAEA Director General Mohammed El Baradei requested authorization from the IAEA board of governors to submit a report concerning the North Korean nuclear problem to the UN Security Council. Upon arrival in Geneva, Director General El Baradei stated that he had submitted a report to the board on North Korea's failure to follow the regulations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). A special board meeting to decide whether to deliver the issue to the UNSC will be held on February 12.

Anti-Americanism Backlash Begins: At the same time, the anti-American demonstrations of 2002 were starting to gain attention in the U.S. Discussions were held in Congress and there was a growing fear that there would be a backlash. The NGO groups were again told to NOT be anti-American. Business leaders and conservatives warned the public of the dangers of such demonstrations. Suddenly all the "Yankee Go Home" disappeared -- or at least were not reported outside of Korea. However, the anti-War movement was picking up in Korea as well as the Americans prepared to attack Iraq. In Korea, government and police sought to suppress any demonstrations that showed anti-Americanism. Roh visited Yongsan Garrison on 15 Jan and stressed the strengths of the ROK-USFK alliance.

However, Roh had asked the ROK military chiefs of staff in December 2002 if they had plans for the removal of the USFK forces. However, he backpedalled on his initial question stating he was misunderstood by the media. On 17 Jan, Roh announced that he would seek an alliance change to one of a true partnership between "equals." Roh sought to have a horizontal relationship with the USFK -- not a vertical relationship as he perceived it. There was a lot of whispered comments about the future turmoil this policy will cause in U.S.-ROK relations.

Anti-War Protests: Go to Protests: January 2003 for information on growing anti-war movement as the NGO groups change their strategy and put the anti-War NGO group in the forefront of the anti-America campaigns. The rhetoric of "Yankee Go Home" is buried, but the effigies of Bush and Rumsfield are still there.

Bush State of the Union Address: On 28 Feb in his State of the Union address, Bush again warned of Korea while at the same time preparing for war with Iraq. He said,

Different threats require different strategies. In Iran, we continue to see a government that represses its people, pursues weapons of mass destruction and supports terror. We also see Iranian citizens risking intimidation and death as they speak out for liberty and human rights and democracy. Iranians, like all people, have a right to choose their own government and determine their own destiny and the United States supports their aspirations to live in freedom.

On the Korean peninsula, an oppressive regime rules a people living in fear and starvation. Throughout the 1990s, the United States relied on a negotiated framework to keep North Korea from gaining nuclear weapons. We now know that the regime was deceiving the world and developing those weapons all along. And today, the North Korean regime is using its nuclear program to incite fear and seek concessions. America and the world will not be blackmailed. America is working with the countries of the region — South Korea, Japan, China and Russia — to find a peaceful solution, and to show the North Korean government that nuclear weapons will bring only isolation, economic stagnation and continued hardship. The North Korean regime will find respect in the world and revival for its people only when it turns away from its nuclear ambitions.

Our nation and the world must learn the lessons of the Korean peninsula and not allow an even greater threat to rise up in Iraq. A brutal dictator with a history of reckless aggression, with ties to terrorism, with great potential wealth, will not be permitted to dominate a vital region and threaten the United States."

FEBRUARY 2003:

U.S. Buildup Viewed as Threat by North Korea On 2 Feb CBS and CNN reported that Admiral Thomas B. Fargo, the head of the United States Pacific Command, had asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield to allocate 24 B1 and B52 bombers to Guam, and for eight F15s and several U2s to be sent to bases in Korea and Japan. Fargo also requested 2,000 support staff for the aircraft. The media groups reported that the move was to prepare for the departure of the USS Kitty Hawk, based in Yokosuka, to the Gulf in case a war is declared on Iraq. Kitty Hawk, America's only forward-deployed aircraft carrier, deployed to the Gulf region in Feb.

The U.S. told Japan of dispatching a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the Carl Vinson, from its base in Hawaii to seas near Japan to fill the "gap." The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson continues to maintain a presence in the region within striking distance of North Korea.

In Guam are two nuclear-powered submarines, the USS City of Corpus Christi and the USS San Francisco, moved their home ports to Guam late last year. A third submarine is expected to arrive by the end of 2003 or early 2004.

However, the media claimed the deployments were linked to the North Korea nuclear issue, although the Pentagon denied this. It stated that the same actions were accomplished during the Gulf War and Bosnia when the Kitty Hawk carrier group was sent to the Middle East. The ROK Ministry of National Defense also denied any consultations to increase troops in Korea. The New York Times quoted a Pentagon official who said the plan was a considered and cautious one, which did not mean any military action. The New York Times said the aircraft could provide back up if President Bush ordered a preemptive strike on Yongbyon. Despite the truth that the U.S. were filling the void left by the Kitty Hawk it is readily apparent that the forces are also aimed at the North. For the first time since 1993, F-117A Stealth bombers were scheduled for joining the Foal Eagle exercises in Korea. (NOTE: It is significant to note that 1993 was the date of the last nuclear standoff with North Korea when the F-117A appeared unannounced.)

An article in Japan Today state that the U.S. was to build up forces in Japan to counter North Korea. Washington has told Tokyo of its plan to beef up its military forces in Japan to prepare for a possible emergency on the Korean Peninsula as tensions rise over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program and it focuses attention on Iraq. The Japanese government has welcomed the U.S. government's plan. The buildup concerns F-15 fighter bombers and U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, among others.

The U.S. government expressed strong concern about North Korea making a provocative military move, such as lifting a freeze on missile launch tests. Japan, as well as other nations in the region, is increasingly concerned about North Korea's provocative behavior and the growing threat it poses to its neighbors. However, in response to the South Korean concerns, the B-1 and B-52 deployment was put on a hold with the units on alert in the CONUS ready for deployment. Its support elements were deployed to Guam.

Japan warned North Korea on 14 Feb that it would launch a pre-emptive strike if Tokyo found evidence that Pyongyang was about to attack with a ballistic missile. Shigeru Ishiba, the Japanese Defence Minister, said that he would be seeking parliamentary approval for “crisis legislation”, which would broaden Tokyo’s ability to act militarily.

He also suggested that Japan would be interested in collaborating with the United States on a missile defence system to protect itself.

Although Tokyo is restrained from using force by its constitution, Mr Ishiba, who is regarded as a hawk, said that this would be purely an act of self-defence and rejected the accusation that Tokyo would be taking action “pre-emptively”. He stated that Japan will use military force as a self-defence measure if (North Korea) starts to resort to arms against Japan." He added that Japan would regard the loading of fuel on a ballistic missile aimed at Japan as a justification for attack.

In Korea in February, the USFK prepared for two defensive exercises. The North criticized the routine Reception Staging and Onward Movement and Integration (RSOI) and 'Foal Eagle' exercises as preemptive strike attempts. According to the USFK, the joint drills are designed to improve the joint U.S.-South Korea forces' ability to defend South Korea against ``external aggression.'' In addition, the 2nd Infantry Division announced that its 'Iron ARTEP' exercise, to evaluate readiness will be held from February 21 to March 10 in Ilwon, Gyeonggi Province. The division said that although there will be military and Korean police to guide traffic, it wanted people within the vicinity to be especially vigilant of the convoys.

Roh Draws Line on Military Response Option: On 19 Feb, President-elect Roh said South Korea's opinion on the North Korean nuclear issue can be different from that of the United States, only if it is intended to maintain peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Roh called for the United States yesterday to rule out any possibility of Washington considering a military option to resolve North Korea's nuclear issues. He said he would oppose any U.S. military strike against North Korea's prohibited nuclear-weapons programs, saying the South must not be afraid to express differences with Washington if it means preventing a war. "It is impossible not to have differences [with the United States, and I cannot agree to attacking North Korea." "We can fully cooperate, but not on this issue." "(The United States') military strike against North Korea is an extremely serious matter that could lead to a war on the peninsula. So I oppose even a review of such a possibility," he said. "It is a matter of which tactic to choose: whether to cooperate with the United States and risk a military attack (on the North), or to speak out so that there is a different opinion in the international community," Roh said. "I think I am right." He also stressed that the most important thing in dealing with the North's nuclear issue is the people's resolve to cope with the worst-case scenario patriotically.

Roh also made it clear that he objects to the U.S.' reported plans to impose sanctions on the North, reiterating that the nuclear standoff should be settled through peaceful means such as dialogue and diplomacy.

Conservatives in the South have pressed reformer Roh to respect the U.S. approach toward the North, underlining the importance of a 50-year-old military alliance between Seoul and Washington. But Roh, a strong advocate of the "sunshine policy" pushed by President Kim Dae-jung, said, "We can express a different view if doing so will prevent a war."

President Bush has said repeatedly he has no plans to invade North Korea in the escalating dispute about Pyongyang's clandestine nuclear programs. A slew of administration officials, led by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, told Congress yesterday that the United States is pursuing a multilateral, diplomatic solution, although Mr. Bush has not ruled out any option. Despite the pledge, there have been some news reports in South Korea and the United States that Washington will eventually consider a military option if the North pushes ahead with its nuclear arms programs. A New York Times report said the Bush administration is mapping out plans for sanctions against the North that may include cutting off money sent there by Koreans in Japan and halting its weapons shipments.

The White House confirmed on 20 Feb that the Pentagon is discussing reducing the U.S. military contingent in South Korea and elsewhere. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, the department's point man on East Asia, told Congress that the U.S. and South Korean approaches on the North largely "overlap." "We can work out the differences we do have as we have in the past," he said.

Secretary of State Powell attended Roh's inauguration on 25 Feb and met with Roh to "strive to construct a general basis for an united view" on North Korea. The U.S. position was that it would be premature to discuss a "united view" so shortly after his inauguration. Thus the U.S. will give time for the President Roh`s administration to "construct a fundamental frame of the North Korean policy." Only then will the U.S. sit down and discuss the issue. He also made ti clear that the military option should remain "on the table."

Gen. Myers, Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview with NBC on 28 Feb that if President George W. Bush decided to use military force to resolve special issues, U.S. troops are ready to operate in a flexible and effective manner, adding that North Korea is one of the targets of nuclear attack. He also said that the U.S. maintains and updates all military options -- including preemptive nuclear attacks against North Korea.

North Korea starts Military Preparations for Attack: On 5 Feb, Kim Jong Il was reported reviewing his bases. On 6 Feb the North reactivated its nuclear facilities claiming they were for power generation, but the U.S. and Korea discredited these statements stating that they were for converting the spent rods into weapon grade plutonium. The North issued a threat of a preemptive strike against "US TROOPS." They promised that they would strike without warning. The tensions increased a notch.

North Korea warns of pre-emptive attack on US troops: BBC

SEOUL, Feb 6 (AFP) - North Korea has warned it would launch a pre-emptive attack on United States forces if Washington sends more troops to the Korean peninsula, the BBC said Thursday.

The threat to strike first against US troops in the region came from North Korea's foreign ministry deputy director, Ri Pyong-Gap, in response to US moves to reinforce its military presence around the Korean peninsula. US officials have said the Pentagon ordered B-52 and B-1 bombers to prepare for deployment in the western Pacific to back up US forces in South Korea. They say the reinforcements would help signal that a possible war with Iraq was not distracting the United States from a nuclear stand-off with North Korea.

North Korea's 1.2-million-strong armed forces have been on alert since the crisis escalated in December when the Stalinist country expelled monitors from the United Nations' atomic agency.

Speaking to a visiting BBC correspondent in Pyongyang, Ri said his government was becoming increasingly alarmed at signs that Washington planned to bolster its military firepower in South Korea.

North Korea will regard such actions as an invasion or attack against it, he said, adding that Pyongyang would not just sit and wait and could decide to strike first if necessary.

Tension over North Korea's nuclear ambitions mounted Thursday after Pyongyang's announcement that a nuclear plant capable of making plutonium for nuclear weapons had begun producing electricity.

The announcement came as Washington stepped up war preparations against Iraq, with US Secretary of State Colin Powell unveiling a dossier on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction at the UN.

The United States branded North Korea's announcement "blackmail" after Pyongyang justified the move to restart its reactor as vital for the energy-starved nation.

The BBC said tensions on the streets of Pyongyang are tangible. Air raid drills and blackouts are becoming twice-daily rituals and huge posters calling for courage in the fight ahead cover billboards and walls.

In Washington, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield, referring to a "dangerous" situation," said North Korea would be making a mistake if it felt it could exploit US preoccupation with Iraq.

"To the extent the world thinks the United States is focused on problems in Iraq, it's conceivable someone could make a mistake and believe that's an opportunity for them to take an action which they otherwise would have avoided, " he told members of the US Congress.

The Pentagon has ordered two dozen long-range bombers -- an equal number of B-1s and B-52s -- to prepare to deploy to Guam as a check against North Korea while it masses forces in the Gulf for a possible war against Iraq, US officials have said.

Rumsfield said North Korea could add to the one or two nuclear weapons it is currently assessed to have by making nuclear material for six to eight more in a relatively short period of time.

"Our forces are arranged around the world -- not in a threatening way but in a way that demonstrates that we do in fact have the capability to act in more than one theater at one time," he said.

US officials reported that spy satellites over North Korea had detected what appeared to be trucks suspected of moving some of 8,000 spent fuel rods out of storage at the Yongbyon nuclear complex.

Bush aides have said they are willing to talk to North Korea -- but only about how it can end its twin nuclear programs, which sparked the crisis. The United States has been seeking to bring the issue before the UN, which could impose sanctions, an act Pyongyang says it would view as a declaration of war.

South Korea opposes the imposition of any sanctions against North Korea and has stressed the need for time to allow diplomacy to work.

N. Korea Vows to Win Standoff With U.S.

JAE-SUK YOO
Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea defiantly declared Monday that it would triumph in its nuclear standoff with the United States, and South Korea's president warned that Pyongyang's weapons program could start an atomic arms race in Northeast Asia.

The North's state-run Central Radio said the world was watching the Pyongyang-Washington standoff "with sweating hands," and vowed that the Stalinist state would maintain its "mighty army-first policy."

"The victory in the nuclear conflict is ours, and the red flag of the army-first policy will flutter ever more vigorously," said the broadcast, monitored by South Korea's Yonhap news agency.

Washington and its allies are pressuring North Korea to abandon its suspected nuclear weapon programs. The North has insisted on direct talks first with the United States, from which it wants a nonaggression treaty. The bluster from the North came as South Korea's outgoing president warned that Pyongyang's production of atomic weapons could force his country and Japan to built nuclear bombs as well.

"If North Korea has nuclear weapons, South Korea could possess such weapons ... and Japan could arm with nuclear weapons. This is what a lot of people worry about. This cannot be tolerated," Kim Dae-jung told tourism officials.

Kim, whose term ends Feb. 25, did not clarify whether he thought North Korea already has such a weapon. Prime Minister Kim Suk-soo has said he believed Pyongyang does not have nuclear weapons.

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfield has said that North Korea has one or two nuclear weapons and could extract enough plutonium within months to make six to eight more.

North Korea had never admitted or denied having nuclear weapons, but has said it has the right to develop nuclear weapons.

Pyongyang's declaration of ultimate victory in the nuclear standoff came a day after it hosted national celebrations for reclusive leader Kim Jong Il's 61st birthday on Sunday.

Kim rules the communist country as supreme commander of the nation's 1.1 million-member armed forces, and state-run media marked his birthday with anti-U.S. diatribe and hyperbolic praise of his pro-military policy.

In his comments to tourism officials, Kim Dae-jung - who has championed a policy of engagement with North Korea - said he believes there is "no possibility" of U.S. military action against Pyongyang, and called for talks.

"North Korea-U.S. talks are important because the problem can only be solved there," he said.

The U.S. military said Monday it will conduct two joint military exercises with South Korea next month, but said the annual maneuvers are not related to the North Korean nuclear dispute. There are 37,000 American troops in South Korea.

The joint drills are "defense-oriented" and designed to improve the joint U.S.-South Korea forces' ability to defend South Korea against "external aggression," the U.S. military command in Seoul said in a statement.

North Korea had no immediate response to the upcoming exercises, but the communist country has routinely denounced past joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises as preparations for an invasion.

Last week, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency referred the issue to the U.N. Security Council. The council could consider economic sanctions against North Korea. The North has said it would consider any sanctions a declaration of war.

The crisis began in October when U.S. officials said North Korea admitted having a covert nuclear program. Washington and its allies suspended fuel shipments, and the North retaliated by expelling U.N. monitors, taking steps to restart frozen nuclear facilities and withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

The 2d ID announced an exercise from Feb. 21 to March 10 in Gyeonggi Province, known as Iron ARTEP (Army Readiness Training and Evaluation Program), During the exercise, U.S. military and South Korean police will form a convoy for the U.S. Army vehicles being used. In addition, in February, the USFK prepared for two other defensive exercises the routine Reception Staging and Onward Movement and Integration (RSOI) and 'Foal Eagle' exercises as preemptive strike attempts. The RSOI is to practice procedures to accept the "follow-on" forces which would beef up the USFK/ROK forces in case they come under attack by the North. "Foal Eagle" is an defensive exercise that has gone on for years. As to the USAF portion, it alternates between Osan and Kunsan as the exercise bases under siege.

In February, the USFK announced that some 2,800 American officers and soldiers in Korea who had finished their tour of duty had been issued with three month retention orders. According to the USFK, this was not the result of actions by North Korea, but rather a potential conflict in Iraq. A USFK official said that the retention orders were issued to prepare for an attack on Iraq and the Reception Staging and Onward Movement and Integration (RSOI) and 'Foal Eagle' exercises to be held in March

Tensions remain high though amongst the USFK forces though there has not been any heightened alerts.

Tensions Remind U.S. Troops in South Korea of Their Mission

By HOWARD W. FRENCH

SEOUL, South Korea, Feb. 22 — It was not all that long ago that Capt. Andre Toussaint assumed that for the next few months, at least, his assignment here would be just about the safest overseas posting in the United States Army.

This line of thinking was an article of faith among the 37,000 American troops stationed here, who reasoned that with the United States braced for a war with Iraq there was little likelihood of a simultaneous fight on this peninsula.

"I shipped out from Fort Bragg, and had I been there one month longer, I would have probably been on the list for Iraq," said Captain Toussaint, 31, a transportation specialist. "I told myself they're not going to pull us out of here because of the Middle East. In fact some of my enlisted men have been calling this the safest place on earth."

But lately, since North Korea's rejection of international controls on its nuclear weapons program, that sort of talk has died down. North Korea's propaganda machine has threatened to turn Seoul into a "sea of fire," while Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfield has put American bombers on alert for possible deployment to the region and asserted that the United States is capable of waging two wars at once.

All of this has caused Captain Toussaint, who is an avid follower of the news, to begin factoring the unforeseeable into his calculations of the risks that come with his job.

"Before, whenever we trained, my soldiers would complain, `Why are we doing this, standing out in the cold for four hours at a time,' " Captain Toussaint said. "But for the last few weeks, the mission has been obvious to everyone, and I don't hear anyone complaining anymore. Nobody here wants a war, but all of a sudden, people understand they must be prepared for the worst."

At a recent briefing for journalists, senior officers at the Yongsan Army Garrison, the headquarters of United States forces in Korea, made it painstakingly clear just how horrific things could get here.

If a full-scale war were to break out between North and South, American military planners say, there could be more than a million casualties in the first two weeks. Most of the dead and wounded would be civilians in and around Seoul, a dense and sprawling metropolitan area of more than 15 million inhabitants.

The 37,000 American troops stationed in South Korea, some within a few miles of the demilitarized zone, would be priority targets for North Korea's huge and robustly equipped army. "You can assume that the building where we are sitting wouldn't be a very good place to be," said a major, who conducted the briefing at the Yongsan base, in the heart of Seoul.

With 13,000 artillery pieces and countless rocket batteries and mortars ranged along the demilitarized zone, American officers said North Korea could rain as many as 500,000 rounds an hour on South Korea. "The idea is to lay down so much fire that the enemy is too staggered to respond," an American colonel said. The American officers said North Korea's forces were densely arrayed along the demilitarized zone and an impending attack would come with little warning. Evacuating the tens of thousands of American civilians — so-called nonessential personnel — from South Korea, they said, would require at least 21 days. Mindful, perhaps, of the potential dangers, Mr. Rumsfield told the Senate Armed Services Committee this week that he was considering plans to reposition United States forces farther from the demilitarized zone and even to reduce their numbers.

For South Koreans, there is nowhere to go but as far south as possible, and in a reflection of that predicament, the steadily mounting crisis has affected everything from the stock market to the country's international credit risk ratings.

North Korea's news media convey the government's contempt for the United States. One recent broadcast likened the United States to a disoriented dog that "knows no fear of the tiger." Another said that "even the mud in the fields" hates America. Washington, meanwhile, recently called the North Korean government a "terrorist regime."

But despite the spike in tensions, American military officials say there have not been any recent signs of worrisome military activity by North Korea near the demilitarized zone. Likewise, they say, there have been no special American precautions for war.

An American military spokeswoman chuckled wryly when asked if American forces had been ordered into a higher state of readiness along the demilitarized zone since December, when North Korea expelled international observers from its nuclear reactors, aggravating the current crisis. "We are always at the highest state of readiness," she said. "There is no way to be any more prepared."

Among the troops stationed closest to the demilitarized zone, the possibility of war, and the certainty of heavy casualties, has always taken a toll in stress. In their twitchy, sometimes pained way, several soldiers claimed gamely that the increasingly heated atmosphere between the United States and North Korea made little difference.

"It's mostly my family that worries about the situation," said Joon Jung Hi, 20, a baby-faced American infantryman of Korean descent whose unit is based at Camp Casey, close to the demilitarized zone. "I try to tell them there is no point in worrying. My commander keeps us motivated by telling us that we have the best team in the world, with a force that nobody else can match, and I believe it."

On 20 Feb a North Korean fighter briefly crossed into South Korean airspace over the Yellow Sea Thursday before being chased back a few minutes later. According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) the North Korean MiG-19 fighter flew some 13 km south of the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the de facto maritime border between the divided Koreas, at 10:03 a.m. but retreated at 10:05 a.m. after two South Korean F-5E fighters were scrambled to intercept it.

Some suspected that the MiG-19 border violation may have been intended to cause the ROK to scramble fighters so that north Korea could verify the effectiveness of the MIG-31 Radar that the North allegedly has obtained. The MIG-31's radar is the first MIG radar with a "look down shoot down" capability and is said to be the most powerful fighter radar in the world. CyberNews 24 reported in Nov 2002 that north Korea has deployed 20 Mig-31 aircraft. The article quotes the MND as saying: "It is now confirmed that North Korea's Air Force has deployed and conducting operations with 20 Russian Mig-31 Fighter aircraft and we have confirmed the heads of the Air Force are currently visiting Russia." The article then went on to talk about how south Korea's Sunshine Policy has made this possible.

North Korea Missile Threat On 9 Feb Professor Hideshi Takesada at the National Institute for Defense Studies in Tokyo said North Korea's first known launching of a rocket capable of striking Japan was a dramatic reminder of his nation's military vulnerabilities. Takesada said North Korea's Daepodong 1 could deliver a 450-pound warhead up to 1,250 miles; far enough to reach any target in Japan and he expected a ballistic missile tests sometime this year. This raised the possibility Friday that North Korea could test-fire long-range missiles this year capable of striking the United States. In December 2002, the North Koreans had threatened the Japanese that they may reopen their missile testing program. In its last missile test, in 1998, North Korea launched a missile that flew over Japanese territory, setting off a crisis between the countries.

In a December 2001 report, the CIA estimated a 10,000 km (6,200 mile) range for the two-stage version of the Taepyongdong -- enough to hit Alaska, Hawaii and Guam and, 15,000 km (9,300 miles) range for the three-stage version, enough to hit any point in North America.

North Korea openly threatened to turn the U.S. into a sea of fire. Then an Associated Press article stated on 12 Feb that a North Korean three-stage TaepyongDong 2 missile had the potential to strike the U.S. mainland though it remained untested. This was from Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and CIA Director George Tenet in briefing the Senate Armed Services Committee. A 2001 U.S. government report said a three-stage Taepo Dong could deliver a several-hundred-pound payload from North Korea to targets about 9,300 miles distant -- sufficient to strike all of North America. A two-stage Taepo Dong 2, which would be easier to use successfully, may be able to reach Alaska or Hawaii. Tenet also said North Korea probably has one or two nuclear weapons. The revelation was certain to raise questions about Bush's priorities -- and whether North Korea or Iraq pose a greater threat to the United States. Baghdad does NOT possess weapons that can strike America. The hysteria in America was just cranked up a notch.

On 24 Feb, North Korea launched a ground-to-ship missile Monday into the East Sea. The Ministry of Defense attempted to determine whether it was a test-firing of a new weapon or part of a winter drill by the North Korean army. The unidentified North Korean rocket -- probably a surface-to-vessel short-range Silkworm with a 60-mile range -- was fired into the sea between Korea and Japan, but it landed in North Korean waters. North Korean missiles are considered to be highly accurate, and the move seemed carefully calibrated to draw attention without being highly provocative — a flashing signal rather than a red light. Later it was reported that this might have been a cruise missile based on a long-range variant of China's HY-2 Silkworm missile and dubbed the AG-1 by the Pentagon. The first test launch was May 23, 1997, from a military base at the Angol army barracks in northeastern North Korea.

Then on 28 Feb, it was announced by the Japanese daily Yoimuri Shimbun that North Korea conducted an engine test for its Daepodong ballistic missile at a launch site in Musudan-ri last month. The newspaper said that this had been confirmed by U.S. reconnaissance satellite photos. The paper said the photos showed the launch site's fiber optics network under maintenance and a roof had been placed over the launch pad apparently to conceal newly-installed equipment and materials, prompting Japan and the United States to increase surveillance on the site.

According to the Daily Yoimuri on 1 Mar, the next move would probably be to test-launch a ballistic missile. The official indicated that recent events are part of a strategy of intimidation on the part of Pyongyang. Reactivating a nuclear reactor is the least dangerous of Pyongyang's three diplomatic cards. The remaining two cards were activating a nuclear plant to extract plutonium by reprocessing used nuclear fuel rods and test-firing a ballistic missile.

N. Korea next move test-firing missile?

Tetsuo Hidaka and Takuji Kawata Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writers

Following North Korea's reactivation of a nuclear reactor and the test of a Taepodong 2 missile engine, both of which were revealed Thursday, a government official said Pyongyang's next move would probably be to test-launch a ballistic missile.

The official indicated that recent events are part of a strategy of intimidation on the part of Pyongyang. It was reported Thursday that a 5,000-kilowatt graphite-moderated reactor in Yongbyon was reactivated and that a Taepodong 2 rocket booster was tested in January at a missile launch site.

On Thursday morning, after the reactivation of the nuclear reactor was reported, Mitoji Yabunaka, director general of the Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, briefed Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi on the situation.

"Reactivating a nuclear reactor is the least dangerous of (Pyongyang's) three (diplomatic) cards," Yabunaka said.

He told Kawaguchi that the remaining two cards were activating a nuclear plant to extract plutonium by reprocessing used nuclear fuel rods and test-firing a ballistic missile.

"If North Korea takes one of the two other actions, Japan will have to start discussing sanctions against the country," he said.

By reactivating the reactor, North Korea will be able to obtain an additional 8,000 used nuclear fuel rods in about a year.

As Pyongyang already has 8,000 used fuel rods, it is possible that North Korea will be able to produce enough weapons-grade plutonium to build more than 10 nuclear bombs.

Pyongyang is urging the United States to open a dialogue by indicating that it could produce a large number of nuclear bombs.

Reactivating a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant is a risky option for North Korea as it will upset Washington. "North Korea seems to believe reactivating the reactor is an action that will fall just short of drawing sanctions," a senior Defense Agency official said.

Govt may consider sanctions

"We are developing missiles to protect the country's rights, safety and socialism from enemy attack," Pyongyang Broadcasting Station said Thursday.

Japan is worried North Korea will next test-fire a ballistic missile, since if the North follows Japan's "three cards" scenario, a test-launch would be a safer option than reactivating a fuel reprocessing plant. The government fears North Korea will choose to test-launch a Rodong missile--which can hit Japan but not the United States--over a Taepodong 2, which is believed capable of reaching the U.S. West Coast. If North Korea launches a Rodong, Washington may not treat the situation as seriously as Japan, and a rift may develop between the allies.

When U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell met with Kawaguchi on Feb. 22, the two agreed not to respond to North Korean provocations.

However, Kawaguchi told Powell, "I want you to understand the difference between Japanese and U.S. public opinion. If a Rodong is fired, Japanese people will panic."

During a Feb. 23 meeting with the U.S. secretary of state, Liberal Democratic Party Secretary General Taku Yamasaki said, "If North Korea fires a Rodong at Japan, the Self-Defense Forces can't intercept it, as Japan doesn't have the ability to defend itself against such a threat."

The government believes it is legally permissible to attack enemy missile launch sites if this can be considered as exercising Japan's individual right to self-defense.

However, as Japan is bound by the principle that the use of force can only be used to defend against an actual attack, the SDF possesses no air-to-surface missiles able to hit targets more than 40 kilometers away. In addition, Air Self-Defense Force fighter jets are not capable of making a round-trip bombing run to North Korea due to their short range.

The Maritime Self-Defense Force's Aegis-equipped destroyers would require cruise missiles--such as Tomahawks, with a range of 2,500 kilometers--to attack a site in North Korea. However, the only countries possessing Tomahawk missiles are the United States and Britain.

The government has started discussing a missile defense system--which would shoot down ballistic missiles with interceptor missiles--as the U.S. government has repeatedly asked Tokyo to obtain one as soon as possible.

Although the United States plans to start deploying such a system in fiscal 2004, it is not expected to be completed until two years after that. Therefore, the system is unlikely to play a role in the ongoing North Korean crisis.

Therefore, in the event North Korea launches a missile, the government will demonstrate a readiness to impose strict sanctions to deter Pyongyang from firing more.

The government is considering restricting money transfers to North Korea, restricting trade with the country and reviewing its contributions to the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization.

Trade restrictions could be a severe blow to North Korea as Japan is the country's second-largest trading partner after China. Trade with Japan "is an important source of foreign currency (for North Korea)," a Foreign Ministry official said. "So the measure will have a large impact."

On 8 Mar CNN stated that U.S. officials believed North Korea would conduct another test of its KN-01 short-range anti-ship missile, which is under development. The KN-01 is the same missile that was tested just prior to President Roh's inauguration on 24 Feb. On 10 Mar the North tested a shore-to-ship cruise missile over the Sea of Japan in the same area as the last test. According to South Korean officials, the anti-ship cruise missile that the North test-fired on 10 Mar from a beach in Sinsang-ri, South Hamgyong Province, failed to hit its target in the East Sea.

On 1 Apr the Japanese government said North Korea fired a ground-to-ship missile but could not confirm the information. The Japanese media reported earlier in the day